John Robinson. The Shed
8 May to 19 July, 2025
Opening Thursday, 8 May, 2025, 6 p.m.
10 & zero uno, Castello 1830, via Garibaldi, Venice
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10 & zero uno gallery is proud to present The Shed, a solo exhibition by British artist John Robinson. Opening during the 19th International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia, at Via Giuseppe Garibaldi, 1830 near the Giardini, the show will run from May 8 2025 to July 19, 2025, with a special vernissage on Thursday, May 8, at 6:00 PM, preceded by a full day of ongoing performances by the artist.
At the core of Robinson’s exhibition stands a shed — originating from his communal vegetable garden near his home, now transformed into a nomadic space for performance, memory, and metamorphosis. Having journeyed from Worcestershire to Rotterdam and now Venice, this modest wooden structure will serve as the setting for a series of intimate and cathartic performances during the exhibition’s opening days: a re- enactment of Robinson’s childhood birthday party and a tarot reading using unique cards created by the artist. As part of the experience, those participating in the performances will become incorporated into the painting itself, becoming an integral part of Robinson’s artwork, their presence permanently captured on canvas during the event, blurring the line between art, memory, and documentation.
Painters have been known throughout history to suffer for their art. In a conceptual about- face, by compelling his audience to participate in his performances, Robinson makes them suffer instead, in order to extract situations that have the potential of becoming unusual paintings. Being inside a John Robinson performance, participants are included in what amounts to a manufactured failure, which may result in embarrassment and awkwardness or even outright humiliation. Surveilling these emotional states allows Robinson to capture moments of visual arrest, which are later rendered in paint. Robinson’s practice touches our concerns of how we as human beings imagine we are perceived by others and our fear of exposure in our more vulnerable psychological states.
Robinson’s practice is steeped in disguise, through self-portraiture, history, and the occult, blending manufactured imagery with visceral, sepia-coloured paintings that document his performance process. His works, which draw from sources such as ecclesiastical architecture, tropes from vernacular mainstream culture and art history, interrogate the self as both subject and object, a fluid entity shaped by the masks we wear—whether they be that of a Velázquez nobleman, a selfie-filter or a grotesque circus caricature.
The Shed itself becomes a symbolic space, both temporary studio and psychological crucible. This physically intimate yet psychologically boundless structure frames his ongoing exploration of performance into painting, capturing fleeting, theatrical moments through the raw urgency of his observations.
About the Artist
John Robinson (b. 1981, Worcester, UK) is an internationally exhibited artist whose practice bridges painting, performance, and the questioning of self-representation. Trained at Falmouth College of Arts and mentored by the late Robert Lenkiewicz, Robinson was awarded the Richard Ford Scholarship at the Royal Academy, leading to a residency at Madrid’s Prado Museum, where he perfected his skillset among the works of Velázquez and Goya. Robinson’s accolades include the Hauser & Wirth Painting Prize, (Somerset, UK) the Premio de Pintura Focus-Abengoa (Seville, Spain), and the Peter Spicer Award for Excellence in Creative Arts. His work is housed in private and public collections such as University of the Arts London, the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, and the Wellcome Collection London. The Shed marks the third solo exhibition by the artist in Italy, having previously exhibited in Biella and Turin.