-
As a student in undergrad in photography with
an interest in film,
-
And I'd overheard a conversation amongst a
couple of my professors
-
about an exhibition that was going to be opening
at a gallery called Martha Schneider.
-
And the title of it was "New Artists, Old
Processes,"
-
and I felt that I really fit in.
-
So I decided to take a portfolio to the gallery.
-
And I think at this time I was maybe 19. I
was maybe a sophomore.
-
They weren't interested in looking at work
of artists coming off the street.
-
But after a little bit of pleading, she looked
at my portfolio,
-
and the next week she gave me a solo show
[LAUGHS]
-
in that space.
-
From that solo show, a few works were bought by the Art Institute of Chicago and the Whitney Museum.
-
--[MALE INTERVIEWER, OFF CAMERA] So you're
pretty ballsy?
-
[JOHNSON] Well I think it was naiveté more
than balls.
-
I think it was just an idiot.
-
I mean if I had... I wouldn’t make that
decision today.
-
I’m not going to go into a gallery... [LAUGHS]
-
I'm not going to go into MoMA with a portfolio
-
and say, "Hey, I'm here with my things. You
should look at them."
-
["Rashid Johnson Keeps His Cool"]
-
--[JOHNSON] He enters.
-
[Hauser & Wirth, Upper East Side]
-
[Marc Payot, Gallerist]
-
--[PAYOT] Especially in your case, the black
works,
-
--it's impossible to see
-
--it gets flat in photography.
-
--[JOHNSON] It's kind of a nice thing when
people see the photographs
-
--and then they actually see the works--
-
--how visceral the actual textures are.
-
--But people like pictures.
-
[ALL LAUGH]
-
I was working with a lot of, kind of,
-
Nineteenth-Century photographic process materials.
-
And, while you're working with those materials,
-
quite a bit of what you're doing is actually,
like,
-
physically applying the photo-sensitive chemistry
to the paper.
-
So it got me very, kind of, interested in
paper.
-
It got me very interested in materials, and
how material was being applied,
-
and how, physically, I was participating with it;
-
which, I think, later on, leads me to melting
black soap and wax, and pouring it.
-
So I think it was a very natural progression
for me.
-
I was really interested in, kind of, taking
ownership of a few different materials--
-
some things that I hadn't seen really employed
in art objects
-
that I could, kind of, essentially take as
my own.
-
When I was about 22, I started going to the
Russian Turkish bath house all the time,
-
and I was just, kind of, sitting there and
sweating,
-
and finding a way to kind of relax, because
I'm kind of a tad high strung, and...
-
[LAUGHS]
-
So, it really became kind of like almost like
a temple to me,
-
like almost a religious space.
-
And I've always wanted to find a material
or something I could kind of use
-
to have a conversation about, like cleansing,
-
you know, like a psychological cleansing,
as well as a physical cleansing.
-
[David Kordansky Gallery, Los Angeles]
-
Shea butter, for me...
-
when I was young, my mom would bring it back
from West Africa,
-
and we'd have it in the house.
-
And over time, I starting thinking,
-
"We're, like, putting Africa on ourselves,
right?"
-
Like, we're like essentially kind of coating
ourselves with this African product.
-
I've always been interested in the domestic,
-
and around, kind of, highjacking, you know,
-
things that we're familiar with,
-
and, you know, essentially kind of occupying
them,
-
or translating them through different filters.
-
[Venice Biennale, Italy]
-
A professor of mine used to say:
-
in the morning, you would get up, and before
you left the house,
-
you'd look in the mirror, and you'd change
something small about yourself,
-
and that's who you thought you were.
-
That's who your "now" character was.
-
You know, and then two minutes after you leave
that mirror, that thing has changed.
-
[LAUGHS] You know?
-
And so, with the mirror works,
-
which become kind of these vehicles for deconstructing
what has been reflected in them...
-
For me, it was interesting to make an art
object
-
that you can then find your "now" space again,
you know,
-
while you actually participate with the object.
-
You get to be that "now" character.
-
My blackness--or the issues around that--
-
have a strong effect on how my work is born
-
and around the conversation that inevitably
will happen,
-
but I don't think that it's really the sum
of all what my work is.
-
I think, formally, I'm trying to approach
art making
-
in a way that is a part of the bigger history
of art.
-
New York is a beast, you know?
-
It's a difficult place to come to as an artist.
-
There's not a whole lot of hand-holding.
-
You know, I had several shitty studios, and...
[LAUGHS]
-
You know, but I think one thing was consistent--
-
that I knew that I wanted to continue to work,
-
and to see how far I could push the work.
-
It's a place I think you come to when you
decide that you really want to be an artist,
-
and that you will do whatever is necessary
-
to allow the work to get the attention that
you think it deserves.
-
--[JOHNSON] Can I bum a cigarette off anyone?
-
--[MAN] Congrats, man.
-
--[JOHNSON] Thank you.
-
They say, I think, New York shakes,
-
and if you’re not grounded in it, [LAUGHS]
-
you know you might fall off this motherfucker.
[LAUGHS]
-
--[MALE INTERVIEWER, OFF CAMERA] Have you
gotten close?
-
I've been okay.
-
I've been alright, you know?