Didactic material has long interested Robbins, originally stemming from the artist’s research studying early photographic representations of Africans disseminated in Europe and the West in the 1800s and early 1900s. At the time of their production and circulation, these images gave viewers a lesson on how to see and think about dark skinned people. Viewed over one century later, these images can easily initiate a gut reaction that codes them as exploitative or dehumanizing. But to Robbins, a seductive element persists in these images; this has been referred to as “didactic pornography”—something that is both arousing and instructional. The imagery from romance novels, created by Robbins or others, also operates in this way. 

Chaoskampf is rooted in the power struggle between two opposing sides and Robbins brings this about in a myriad of ways. White versus black. Feminine versus masculine. Top versus bottom. Self versus other. Human versus machine. And so on. To Robbins, Chaoskampf is an ongoing and overarching epic of their own experience and the experiences of subjects beyond them. This brings us to, perhaps unexpectedly, Marcel Duchamp’s legendary The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even (The Large Glass) that was made between 1915 and 1923. 

Robbins sees a modern and personally relatable Chaoskampf playing out in The Large Glass—one rooted in an automated system of desire, violence, and mass production. The Large Glass is separated vertically by two rectangles, the top being the Bride's Domain and the bottom being known the Bachelors' Apparatus (centered in this section is the Chocolate Grinder, which particularly resonates with Robbins). This seminal piece is not open to simple interpretation, but in some of Duchamp’s writing, he speaks of the male figures in the bottom left corner as the Malic Molds. The molds would fill with gas and come to life as figurative products of the mold. They would then attempt to influence (or attack) the Bride in the upper portion of the piece. The story from here is largely unresolved, giving Robbins an opportunity to complete it. 

Within the top section of the Brides Domain there are three empty frames surrounded by a wide cloud-like shape. To Robbins, these frames are akin to the three walls of the east gallery in this exhibition. Hung on them are three finely tuned oil paintings that portray Robbins (as the Bride) in embrace with the bulls (the Bachelors). This repositions the Bride not as a passive target of violence but as a corrective force that demands gazes as an act of survival. Robbins’ own Chaoskampf rides the storm—battling for visibility, desire, and the right to be loved.  

Elliott Jamal Robbins (b. 1988, Oklahoma City - He/Him/They/Them) is an artist whose work engages with the archive of visual culture, through the act of subjunction; inserting their subjectivity into a visual field that was developed with the intention of flattening its subjects into stereotypes, and/or discarding any record of their existence all together. They use collage, drawing, painting, text/writing, and recurrent filmic and aesthetic motifs as mediums for their personal storytelling.

In 2017 Robbins received an MFA from the University of Arizona. Previously, they attended the University of Oklahoma, where they received a BFA. Since leaving school, Robbins has shown in solo and group exhibitions in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Berlin, and Basel. They have received many awards and honors, both nationally and internationally. Some include the Pollock Krasner Foundation Grant, the Contemporary Forum Artist Grant, a National Sculpture Society Scholarship, FJJMA Museum Association Award, the John F. and Anna Lee Stacey Scholarship, and the Momentum OKC 2014 Artist Spotlight. As well, their work has been featured in publications such as Propublica, NYT’s T Magazine, and Time Out New York.