Rashid Johnson

Rashid Johnson was born in Chicago, Illinois, in 1977, and has developed into one of the most compelling multidisciplinary voices in contemporary American art. He earned a BA in photography from Columbia College Chicago and pursued graduate study at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, a dual formation that anchored his practice in both conceptual rigor and material experimentation. His work moves fluidly across photography, sculpture, painting, installation, and performance, drawing on themes of race, class, identity, cultural memory, autobiography, and the broader history of modern and contemporary art.

Johnson's engagement with Black identity and representation is perhaps most legibly traced through his early photographic work. The New Negro Escapist Social and Athletic Club (Emmett), made in 2008, is a chromogenic print now held in the collection of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., and stands as a touchstone of his sustained inquiry into the cultural politics of Black selfhood and the historical figure of the "New Negro." That same layered thinking — reaching across personal history, collective memory, and art-historical reference — has continued to animate his practice across every medium he has pursued.

His exhibition record spans institutions on multiple continents and reflects a career of sustained international engagement. Solo presentations have taken place at the Aspen Art Museum, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, the Garage Museum of Contemporary Art in Moscow, Moderna Museet in Stockholm, Museo Tamayo in Mexico City, the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa, Storm King Art Center in New Windsor, MoMA PS1 in Long Island City, the South London Gallery, and Gallery Met at the Metropolitan Opera in New York, among many others. He has also mounted solo exhibitions at the Grand Palais in Paris, Lismore Castle Arts, the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, and the McNay Art Museum in San Antonio. His work appeared in a group context at the Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris, whose collection includes his work. Across Hauser & Wirth — his primary gallery alongside David Kordansky Gallery in Los Angeles — Johnson has presented solo exhibitions in New York, London, Somerset, St. Moritz, Hong Kong, Menorca, Zurich, and Paris, with Rashid Johnson: Anima opening at Hauser & Wirth Paris in 2024. Recent critical attention has included a review of his Guggenheim presentation in The Wall Street Journal and coverage in Apollo magazine and Arts & Culture Texas, reflecting the continued breadth of his public reception.