Rashid Johnson
Rashid Johnson
Rashid Johnsonis an African-American socio-political photographer who produces conceptual post-black art. Johnson first received critical attention when examples of his work were included in the exhibition "Freestyle," curated by Thelma Golden at the Studio Museum in Harlem in 2001—when he was 24. He has studied at Columbia College Chicago and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. His work has been exhibited around the world and he is held in collections of many of the world's leading art museums...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPhotographer
CountryUnited States of America
art collective domestic felt inform materials outside supply talk trying
As an artist, I've always felt most comfortable outside of the art supply store. So domestic materials are the ones that most help inform what I'm trying to talk about and our familiarity as a whole - kind of the collective us, I guess.
art beyond concerns deal far formal history material
I wanted my art to deal with very formal concerns and to deal with very material concerns, and to deal with antecedents and art history, which for me go very far beyond just the influence of African-American artists.
artists feeling function learning thirst work
When I was young, I remember feeling a real thirst for opportunities around the arts, for learning about how artists function and how institutions work.
art artists embodied gave mean
I don't have any other skills. Some artists say that to mean that their embodied passion for art gave them no choice. I say it, very specifically, to say that I really didn't have any other options.
came crisis harold introduced skip west
My mother introduced me to more academic-minded writers, Cornel West and Skip Gates. In her library, I came across, when I was very young, Harold Cruse's 'The Crisis of the Negro Intellectual,' which is like a bible of Negro intellectuals from Frederick Douglass to Amiri Baraka.
above anxiety developed graduate head poor problem serious trying work
I was going through a divorce, and I had a lot of reading I was doing, and I developed what was probably a serious anxiety problem - because I was about as poor as you can get, in graduate school, and trying to make my work and keep my head above water.
goes historical middle toward
My composition often goes toward the black middle class or the black super-wealthy or strong historical black figures.
bring calling employs krauss life mediums order several specific suffer whatever
I say that I suffer from what Rosalind Krauss was calling the post-medium condition, where an artist essentially employs several mediums in order to bring to life whatever specific ideas that they have. For me it's always been that way.
african blocks born chicago father finishing history moved north parents side soon three time
I was born in Evanston, about three blocks away from the Chicago border. My mother, at the time, was finishing her Ph.D. in African History at Northwestern University. Soon after my birth, my parents split, and my father moved to Wicker Park, which is on the north side of the city.
abnormal berlin black born dealing living originally prior project time
'The New Black Yoga' originally was born from a film that I had made prior called 'Black Yoga.' And I was living in Berlin at the time, dealing with a lot of anxiety and stress around the project that I was working on, which is not an abnormal thing for me.
associated complexity humor race sort
The whole ability to look at the complexity of race and any sort of associated -ism and still find humor, that's a very interesting space.
hits
The way that light hits objects, I think, is one of the more important things that sculpture and photography share.
hits life objects
The way that light hits objects in life, three-dimensional objects before you photograph them, is really the story of photography.
employ materials specific
For me, all the materials and objects I employ come from a specific space that's very personal.