Michael Robinson is a film, video and collage artist whose work explores the emotional mechanics of popular media, the transcendent potential of heartache, and the instability of the collective realities we inhabit.  Riding the line between nostalgia and contempt, these works invoke a queer balancing of dark humor and bald sentiment - indulging the seductions of dramatic formulas and aesthetic excess amidst heavy doses of manipulation, abstraction, and damnation. 

His work has shown internationally in both solo and group shows at venues including London’s National Portrait Gallery, The 2012 Whitney Biennial, REDCAT Los Angeles, The Austrian Film Museum, The Walker Art Center, RHA Dublin, MoMA, and MMCA Seoul, and has been regularly included in major film festivals like Rotterdam, New York, Berlinale, London BFI, Melbourne, Hong Kong, Sundance, FICUNAM, Cinema du Reel, Oberhausen and Toronto.

Michael's work has been supported by two MacDowell Fellowships, a Creative Capital grant, a Wexner Center Artist Residency Award, a Yaddo residency, a Kazuko Trust Award presented by The Film Society of Lincoln Center, a residency from The Headlands Center for the Arts, a Teton Artlab residency, a FIDlab Marseille project, and his films have received awards from numerous festivals.  His work has been discussed in publications such as Art In America, Frieze, Artforum, Film Comment, Cinema Scope, Dazed, The Nation, BOMB, The Irish Times, and The Brooklyn Rail.

Michael has curated programs for San Francisco Cinematheque, Whitechapel Gallery, The Museum of Contemporary Photography, Cornell Cinema, and The State Contemporary Art Center in Moscow, and served on the awards juries of film festivals including Ann Arbor, Aurora (Norwich, UK), Milwaukee Underground, Big Muddy (Carbondale), and Migrating Forms (NYC).  He holds a BFA from Ithaca College, an MFA from the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC).  Michael lives and works in Los Angeles,  and teaches at CalArts and Bard MFA, having previously taught at Otis College of Art and Design, Binghamton University, Ithaca College and UIC.  

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