Rashid Johnson:
Message to Our Folks, currently on view at the MCA Chicago, is
Chicago-born, New York-based artist Rashid Johnson’s first major solo
exhibition. The title of the exhibition, which references jazz group Art
Ensemble Chicago’s 1969 album of the same name, inaugurates two themes that
permeate the exhibition: conversation and identity. By establishing the conceit
of “our folks,” Johnson raises the question of collective identity and
underlines the very notion that a type of shared personhood exists. “Message,”
of course, implies communication. The entire exhibition, which surveys the past
decade of Johnson’s work, revolves around this discourse of black identity. Through
photographs, paintings, sculptures, and video, Johnson explores his own past
and position within this framework. Through his own, personal exploration,
Johnson’s work more broadly encourages viewer self-reflection and awareness.
The themes of the exhibition are immediately apparent upon
entering the exhibition space. On the floor of the first gallery, the wooden
planks are branded with black cultural iconography, from the Public Enemy
crosshairs to black fraternity emblems and diamonds/bling. Although the symbols
refer to cultural entities—from hip-hop to the larger practice of graffiti and
mark-making—they inauspiciously recall the historical branding of African
slaves. As the viewer moves through the gallery space, they are visually
reminded with each step, of the loaded history that Johnson navigates as he
progresses with his practice.
In one corner of the first gallery, a video entitled Sweet Sweet Runner plays. In the video,
Johnson references Melvin Van Peebles’ Sweet
Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song, which portrays a black man on the run from
white authorities.[1] In Johnson’s
rendition, however, the protagonist simply jogs around Central Park. By running
for himself and his fitness, the man in Johnson’s video subverts a stereotype
and replaces it with a sense of individual agency that appears again and again
throughout the exhibition.
Confronting the viewer most conspicuously in the first
gallery is Johnson’s The Promoter, a towering mirror divided into jarring
geometric fragments and splashed with melted black wax. The scale of the mirror
circumvents viewer avoidance, and in order to proceed onward to the next
gallery, museum-goers cannot bypass glancing into the mirror. When they do, it
is impossible to synthesize a clear image of themselves; rather, they see their
bodies splintered into discontinuous pieces, an overt allusion to fragmentation
and the construction of selfhood.
Mirrors continue to make appearances throughout the exhibition. The next gallery features the piece Run, in which the word “RUN” is spraypainted across a mirror. In a video presented on the MCA’s website, Johnson speaks about his interest in a history of black escapism, citing examples of Marcus Garvey, who says “let’s go back to Africa” and Sun Ra who “says let’s go to Saturn.”[2] Run, which itself denotes escape, highlights Johnson’s investment in this practice. Its placement within the gallery further emphasizes Johnson’s position in relation to a canon of black historical figures. When the viewer peers into the mirror, not only is their reflection obscured by RUN, but also by the reflected salon-style display of photographs on the opposing wall. These photographs, which recall James Van Der Zee’s portraits from the Harlem Renaissance, depict various black intellectuals and cultural figures. The photographs come from a body of work entitled The New Negro Escapist Social and Athletic Club, a humorous title that references the Harlem Renaissance ambition to break black stereotypes.[3] Johnson’s beautifully crafted portraits not only point to this rich history, but also instill each individual with a drama that emphasizes their uniqueness and gives them idiosyncratic agency, much like the agency that Johnson grants to the runner in Sweet Sweet Runner from the previous gallery.
Mirrors continue to make appearances throughout the exhibition. The next gallery features the piece Run, in which the word “RUN” is spraypainted across a mirror. In a video presented on the MCA’s website, Johnson speaks about his interest in a history of black escapism, citing examples of Marcus Garvey, who says “let’s go back to Africa” and Sun Ra who “says let’s go to Saturn.”[2] Run, which itself denotes escape, highlights Johnson’s investment in this practice. Its placement within the gallery further emphasizes Johnson’s position in relation to a canon of black historical figures. When the viewer peers into the mirror, not only is their reflection obscured by RUN, but also by the reflected salon-style display of photographs on the opposing wall. These photographs, which recall James Van Der Zee’s portraits from the Harlem Renaissance, depict various black intellectuals and cultural figures. The photographs come from a body of work entitled The New Negro Escapist Social and Athletic Club, a humorous title that references the Harlem Renaissance ambition to break black stereotypes.[3] Johnson’s beautifully crafted portraits not only point to this rich history, but also instill each individual with a drama that emphasizes their uniqueness and gives them idiosyncratic agency, much like the agency that Johnson grants to the runner in Sweet Sweet Runner from the previous gallery.
The most interesting part of the exhibition, to me, was the
evocation of domestic space within the galleries. Most notably, Johnson creates
shelves with mirror pieces, black wax, and wood. Johnson explains that he was
influenced by conceptual artist Lawrence Weiner’s book Something To Put Something On, wherein the words used for simple
objects are questioned; a table is described as “something to put something
on.”[4]
Armed with this idea, Johnson too began to create "something to put something
on." The objects that would occupy the spaces on the shelves came from Johnson’s
personal world—the things that were around him in his day-to-day life—from
books and records to soap and shea butter. In describing his [influential]
upbringing, Johnson reveals that his parents, once daishiki-clad and
afro-sporting, suddenly became middle-class soccer moms.[5]
This transition away from afrocentrism was apparent to Johnson through the use
(and discontinued use) of objects. It is thus evident why Johnson chooses to
engage with mundane objects. He examines the way in which objects become
embedded with meaning and how they function in one’s life. By placing them
strategically on his constructed shelves (which recall altars and ritual),
Johnson removes them from a functional context and into one of contemplation
and engagement. The undoing of the objects’ use value is further augmented by
repetition of the objects. Many shelves are host to multiple copies of one
book, stacked in neat columns. By creating such a non-functional, yet
undeniably domestic environment, Johnson conceives a space where one does not
really know oneself. The viewer must engage, read, cogitate, and ritualize in
order to come to terms with the space and his/her position within it. This unhinged sense of belonging is
well-visualized in Johnson’s Black Steel
in the Hour of Chaos, a sculpture of the Public Enemy crosshairs. The
positioning of the sculpture allows viewers to walk entirely around it, so that
one does not know which side of the scope he or she is standing on. The entire
exhibition is about orienting oneself, or the impossibility of doing so.
Like Wiener, Johnson explores the limitations of language
and meaning. For Johnson, however, the words that are questioned center around
blackness and identity. Just as Wiener demonstrates the many linguistic ways to
define a table, Johnson reveals the multifaceted nature of blackness, and the
impracticality of a monolithic definition of black identity. More comprehensively,
his pieces, which communicate balance and orientation (shelves, domestic
contraptions, furniture, mirrors, floorboards), work together to form a
meditative space for viewers to contemplate their own standing, selfhood, and
agency.
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