Rashid johnson
Rashid Johnson is a multimedia artist who has established himself as one of the leading voices of the contemporary art world. He creates insightful observations on race and class while building a natural formal language combining several sculptural and artistic traditions.
Sculptural constructions, wall-based installations that address art history, and assemblages that use merchandise like shea butter, books, records, and incense have been part of the artist's oeuvre since many of his early works evolved out of conceptual photography.
Johnson was born in Chicago, Illinois, in 1977, and grew up in an Afrocentric home, which shaped many of his views regarding identity.
He received a BFA from Columbia College Chicago in 2000 and an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Johnson gained attention at the age of 21 when he took part in the pioneering group show "Freestyle" at Harlem's Studio Museum. Johnson now resides and works in Brooklyn, New York.
On the right: Untitled (Anxious Man), 2018
Johnson has been heavily influenced by LeRoi Jones, also known as Amiri Baraka, when his mother used to read his poems to him as a child. Gregg Bordowitz, artist, activist, and writer, also served as one of his mentors while he was a student at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
On the left: Two Standing Broken Men, 2019
Johnson grew up in a culture that was impacted by hip-hop and Black entertainment in media and followed a generation of black artists that concentrated on the "black experience." His modern audiences have a better knowledge of the "black experience" because of his generation's direct exposure to black culture in pop culture, which has allowed him to connect with people of other races and identities more deeply.
On the right: Young Afronaut, 2009
Rashid Johnson was commissioned by The Metropolitan Opera in New York to produce monumental works of art for their opera house in 2021.
During the Venice Biennale in 2011, he was displayed in the international pavilion and Native Son, an adaptation of Richard Wright's novel, was the first major motion picture Johnson ever produced. The Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, and the High Museum of Art in Atlanta currently include the artist's works in their collections.
“I've always had an interest in complicating the way that we perceive the black character, whether it's the black academic or scholar or activist or black intellectual”
Above: Untitled Anxious Audience, 2016