Audio Tour: Rashid Johnson: Message to Our Folks
About
MCA Chicago presents Chicago-born, New York-based artist Rashid Johnson's first major solo museum exhibition, surveying the first fourteen years of his career. Deftly working in a range of media—including photography, painting, sculpture, and video—Johnson incorporates commonplace objects from his childhood into his work in a process he describes as “hijacking the domestic.” The artist transforms these everyday materials—such as plants, books, record albums, photographs, shea butter, and soap—into conceptually loaded and visually compelling works that challenge entrenched ways of thinking about the black experience and emphasize its plurality. Johnson investigates the construction of identity in a practice that is steeped in individual experience while invoking shared cultural references. Throughout his work, he enters into dialogue with black American creative and intellectual figures whose impact has transcended race, extending their legacy. Message to Our Folks, Johnson's first major solo museum exhibition, examines how this work has developed over the first fourteen years of his career.
Audio Playlist
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Introduction -
Floor -
Photography -
Non-art materials -
Books and shelving -
“Houses in Motion” and “Antibiotic” -
“Black Steel…” -
“How ya like me now”