Rashid Johnson

Available Artworks

Rashid Johnson is a renowned contemporary American artist, born in Chicago in 1977. His artistic practice encompasses a diverse range of media, including sculpture, painting, drawing, filmmaking, and installation. Johnson’s work delves into various themes such as art history, cultural identities, personal narratives, literature, philosophy, materiality, and critical history.

After studying photography at the Art Institute of Chicago, Johnson’s artistic exploration expanded to incorporate multiple disciplines, resulting in a multidisciplinary practice infused with symbolism and personal history. His artwork establishes a unique formal vocabulary that merges sculptural and painterly traditions, establishing him as one of the major voices of his generation.

Johnson’s work explores race and class, drawing inspiration from African American intellectual and imaginative life. While rooted in specific autobiographical contexts, his art transcends cultural boundaries, aiming to communicate through abstract visual languages. Johnson believes that the visceral experience of art is inseparable from the social matrix that gives rise to it, allowing for a wide range of two-dimensional and three-dimensional objects, installations, videos, and performances.

The artist’s talent has been recognized through numerous commissions and exhibitions. In 2022, he was one of six artists commissioned to create a site-specific installation for Delta Airlines’ new terminal at La Guardia Airport in Queens, New York. Additionally, the Metropolitan Opera in New York commissioned Johnson to create large-scale artworks for its opera house in 2021. His outdoor sculpture was installed at the Storm King Art Center in New Windsor, New York. Johnson’s solo exhibitions have been held at prestigious institutions such as Museo Tamayo in Mexico City, Aspen Art Museum in Colorado, Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art in Kansas City, Milwaukee Art Museum, Garage Museum of Contemporary Art in Moscow, and the Drawing Center in New York.

His work has also been featured in notable group exhibitions, including those at the Guggenheim Museum in New York, Palazzo Barberini in Rome, New Museum in New York, Liverpool Biennial in England, Museum of Modern Art in New York, and the International Pavilion at the Venice Biennale in Italy. Johnson’s artwork is housed in permanent collections of renowned institutions like the Whitney Museum of American Art, Guggenheim Museum, Astrup Fearnley Museet in Oslo, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in Humlebæk, Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago.

In addition to his visual art, Johnson made his mark in the film industry with his first feature-length film, an adaptation of Richard Wright’s Native Son, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and was released on HBO in 2019. Currently, Johnson resides and works in New York, continuing to push artistic boundaries and challenge societal norms through his thought-provoking creations.