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Rashid Johnson
Untitled (daybed 5), 2012

Courtesy the artist and Hauser&Wirth
Photo: Andy Keate

Rashid Johnson

Collection

Branded red oak, zebra skin, rug
64.1 x 185.4 x 91.4 cm

"Rashid Johnson's artworks, which have been identified with the post-black art movement, meditate on the cultural phenomena that shape African-Americans as a social group. Inspired by a diverse array of visual artists, actors, musicians, writers, activists, and philosophers, including W. E. B. Du Bois, Joseph Beuys, Joseph Cornell, Parliament Funkadelic and Sun Ra, Johnson engages with questions of personal, racial, and cultural identity through his work, producing an amalgamation of historical and material references grounded in art and African-American history". – Ashton Chandler

By placing Untitled (daybed 5) - a chaise lounge covered in zebra-skins surrounded by Persian rugs - in a gallery, Johnson intends for the transformation of the space to become a place where an imagined society can access free psychotherapy as a drop-in service.
Sometimes the daybed can also appear turned on its side. Such a position poses a contradiction to its original function and enhances the manipulations of aggressive gestures as suggested by paint spills and scratches in the wood which become visible. These markings also appear often in his paintings like Born by the River, which is also in the TBA21 collection. The calm sanctuary becomes fragmented by a closer look at the details in the work that hint at the darkness of the human psyche.

*1977 in Chicago, USA | Living and working in New York, USA

Rashid Johnson is among an influential cadre of contemporary American artists whose work employs a wide range of media to explore themes of art history, individual and shared cultural identities, personal narratives, literature, philosophy, materiality, and critical history.After studying in the photography department of the Art Instituteof Chicago, Johnson’s practice quickly expanded to embrace a wide range of media – including sculpture, painting, drawing, filmmaking, and installation. Johansons work has been exhibited all around the world, he won the David C. Driskell Prize in 2012 and released his movie Native Son. As well as his books Rashid Johnson: sharpening my oyster knife and Rashid Johnson: Shelter. In 2015 he won the NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Directing in a Television Movie for his movie.

This biography is from Wikipedia under an Attribution-ShareAlike Creative Commons License as well as from Hauser & Wirth .

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