32 Facts About Rashid Johnson

Rashid Johnson was born on 1977 and is an American artist who produces conceptual post-black art.

Rashid Johnson studied at Columbia College Chicago and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and his work has been exhibited around the world.

Rashid Johnson is known for several bodies of work in different media, including photography and painting.

Rashid Johnson is known for both his unusual artistic productions and for his process of combining various aspects of science with black history.

Rashid Johnson's parents divorced when he was 2 years old and his mother remarried a man of Nigerian descent.

Rashid Johnson has stated that growing up his family was based in afrocentrism and that his family celebrated Kwanzaa.

Rashid Johnson was raised in the Wicker Park neighborhood of Chicago, Illinois and Evanston, Illinois, a suburb.

Rashid Johnson followed a generation of black artists who focused on the "black experience" and grew up in a generation that was influenced by hip hop and Black Entertainment Television.

Rashid Johnson's work has been exhibited at the Art Institute of Chicago; the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; the Detroit Institute of Arts; the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; the Corcoran Museum of Art, Washington, DC; the Institute of Contemporary Photography, New York; the Brooklyn Museum of Art, New York; and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago.

Rashid Johnson geometrically arranged abstractions of feet, hands, and elbows in shapes such as cubes, church windows and ships.

Also in 2002, presenting his photographic work using chicken bones, Rashid Johnson exhibited at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, as part of the UBS 12 x 12: New Artists, New Work series.

Rashid Johnson exhibited his homeless men work, including George, in Atlanta, Georgia as part of the National Black Arts Festival at City Gallery East in July and August 2002.

Rashid Johnson explored the "historical and contemporary nature of photography".

In conjunction with the Renaissance Society at the University of Chicago, Rashid Johnson exhibited The Evolution of the Negro Political Costume in December 2004.

Rashid Johnson presented replicas of three outfits worn by African-American politicians.

Rashid Johnson included a late 1960s dashiki worn by Jesse Jackson, a 1980s running suit worn by Al Sharpton in the '80s and a business suit worn by then United States Senator-elect Barack Obama.

Rashid Johnson addressed distraction and relief from reality through art and fantasy.

Rashid Johnson used photos, video and site-specific installation to study escapist tendencies through often with a sense of humor that bordered on the absurd.

Rashid Johnson described Johnson's exploration of the politics of race as "sloganeering or cute self-advertising" in his two-dimensional works, and his apolitical three-dimensional installations as "glib and superficial" representations.

Rashid Johnson classified Johnson's work as more suitable for the audience seeking nothing more than American pop culture.

In November 2011, Rashid Johnson was named one of six finalists for the Hugo Boss Prize.

In 2013, Rashid Johnson was one of the commissioned artists for the Performa Biennial.

Rashid Johnson began serving on the boards of Performa, Ballroom Marfa, and the Guggenheim Museum.

In 2022, Rashid Johnson's Surrender Painting "Sunshine" sold for $3 million, a record for the artist at auction.

Rashid Johnson made his directorial debut with Native Son, a film adaptation of Richard Wright's acclaimed 1940 novel of the same name.

Rashid Johnson uses "alchemy, divination, astronomy, and other sciences that combine the natural and spiritual worlds" to augment black history.

Rashid Johnson has garnered national attention for both his unusual subject matter and for his process.

Rashid Johnson achieves a painterly feel with his prints with the application of pigment using broad brush strokes.

Rashid Johnson uses a 8-by-10-inch Deardorff, which forces him to interact with his subjects.

Rashid Johnson served on the jury that selected Otobong Nkanga for the Nasher Prize in 2024.

Rashid Johnson has staged numerous solo shows at museums and galleries in the United States and internationally.

Rashid Johnson has participated in many group shows, including Freestyle, Studio Museum in Harlem, New York; IBCA 2005, Prague; ILLUMInations, 54th Venice Biennale; Shanghai Biennale ; Prospect.