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Rashid Johnson Keeps His Cool | Art21 "New York Close Up"

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    As a student in undergrad in photography with
    an interest in film,
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    And I'd overheard a conversation amongst a
    couple of my professors
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    about an exhibition that was going to be opening
    at a gallery called Martha Schneider.
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    And the title of it was "New Artists, Old
    Processes,"
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    and I felt that I really fit in.
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    So I decided to take a portfolio to the gallery.
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    And I think at this time I was maybe 19. I
    was maybe a sophomore.
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    They weren't interested in looking at work
    of artists coming off the street.
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    But after a little bit of pleading, she looked
    at my portfolio,
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    and the next week she gave me a solo show
    [LAUGHS]
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    in that space.
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    From that solo show, a few works were bought by the Art Institute of Chicago and the Whitney Museum.
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    --[MALE INTERVIEWER, OFF CAMERA] So you're
    pretty ballsy?
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    [JOHNSON] Well I think it was naiveté more
    than balls.
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    I think it was just an idiot.
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    I mean if I had... I wouldn’t make that
    decision today.
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    I’m not going to go into a gallery... [LAUGHS]
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    I'm not going to go into MoMA with a portfolio
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    and say, "Hey, I'm here with my things. You
    should look at them."
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    ["Rashid Johnson Keeps His Cool"]
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    --[JOHNSON] He enters.
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    [Hauser & Wirth, Upper East Side]
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    [Marc Payot, Gallerist]
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    --[PAYOT] Especially in your case, the black
    works,
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    --it's impossible to see
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    --it gets flat in photography.
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    --[JOHNSON] It's kind of a nice thing when
    people see the photographs
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    --and then they actually see the works--
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    --how visceral the actual textures are.
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    --But people like pictures.
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    [ALL LAUGH]
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    I was working with a lot of, kind of,
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    Nineteenth-Century photographic process materials.
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    And, while you're working with those materials,
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    quite a bit of what you're doing is actually,
    like,
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    physically applying the photo-sensitive chemistry
    to the paper.
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    So it got me very, kind of, interested in
    paper.
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    It got me very interested in materials, and
    how material was being applied,
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    and how, physically, I was participating with it;
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    which, I think, later on, leads me to melting
    black soap and wax, and pouring it.
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    So I think it was a very natural progression
    for me.
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    I was really interested in, kind of, taking
    ownership of a few different materials--
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    some things that I hadn't seen really employed
    in art objects
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    that I could, kind of, essentially take as
    my own.
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    When I was about 22, I started going to the
    Russian Turkish bath house all the time,
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    and I was just, kind of, sitting there and
    sweating,
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    and finding a way to kind of relax, because
    I'm kind of a tad high strung, and...
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    [LAUGHS]
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    So, it really became kind of like almost like
    a temple to me,
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    like almost a religious space.
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    And I've always wanted to find a material
    or something I could kind of use
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    to have a conversation about, like cleansing,
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    you know, like a psychological cleansing,
    as well as a physical cleansing.
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    [David Kordansky Gallery, Los Angeles]
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    Shea butter, for me...
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    when I was young, my mom would bring it back
    from West Africa,
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    and we'd have it in the house.
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    And over time, I starting thinking,
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    "We're, like, putting Africa on ourselves,
    right?"
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    Like, we're like essentially kind of coating
    ourselves with this African product.
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    I've always been interested in the domestic,
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    and around, kind of, highjacking, you know,
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    things that we're familiar with,
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    and, you know, essentially kind of occupying
    them,
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    or translating them through different filters.
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    [Venice Biennale, Italy]
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    A professor of mine used to say:
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    in the morning, you would get up, and before
    you left the house,
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    you'd look in the mirror, and you'd change
    something small about yourself,
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    and that's who you thought you were.
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    That's who your "now" character was.
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    You know, and then two minutes after you leave
    that mirror, that thing has changed.
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    [LAUGHS] You know?
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    And so, with the mirror works,
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    which become kind of these vehicles for deconstructing
    what has been reflected in them...
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    For me, it was interesting to make an art
    object
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    that you can then find your "now" space again,
    you know,
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    while you actually participate with the object.
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    You get to be that "now" character.
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    My blackness--or the issues around that--
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    have a strong effect on how my work is born
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    and around the conversation that inevitably
    will happen,
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    but I don't think that it's really the sum
    of all what my work is.
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    I think, formally, I'm trying to approach
    art making
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    in a way that is a part of the bigger history
    of art.
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    New York is a beast, you know?
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    It's a difficult place to come to as an artist.
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    There's not a whole lot of hand-holding.
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    You know, I had several shitty studios, and...
    [LAUGHS]
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    You know, but I think one thing was consistent--
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    that I knew that I wanted to continue to work,
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    and to see how far I could push the work.
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    It's a place I think you come to when you
    decide that you really want to be an artist,
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    and that you will do whatever is necessary
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    to allow the work to get the attention that
    you think it deserves.
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    --[JOHNSON] Can I bum a cigarette off anyone?
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    --[MAN] Congrats, man.
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    --[JOHNSON] Thank you.
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    They say, I think, New York shakes,
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    and if you’re not grounded in it, [LAUGHS]
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    you know you might fall off this motherfucker.
    [LAUGHS]
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    --[MALE INTERVIEWER, OFF CAMERA] Have you
    gotten close?
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    I've been okay.
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    I've been alright, you know?
Title:
Rashid Johnson Keeps His Cool | Art21 "New York Close Up"
Description:

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Video Language:
English
Team:
Art21
Project:
"New York Close Up" series
Duration:
06:53

English subtitles

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