Continuing the Art of Play
August 3, 2022
Artist: Rashid Johnson
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https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87618016665
Born in Chicago in 1977, Rashid Johnson is among an influential cadre of contemporary American artists whose work employs a wide range of media to explore themes of art history, individual and shared cultural identities, personal narratives, literature, philosophy, materiality, and critical history. After studying in the photography department of the Art Institute of Chicago, Johnson’s practice quickly expanded to embrace a wide range of media – including sculpture, painting, drawing, filmmaking, and installation – yielding a complex multidisciplinary practice that incorporates diverse materials rich with symbolism and personal history.
Johnson’s work is known for its narrative embedding of a pointed range of everyday materials and objects, often associated with his childhood and frequently referencing collective aspects of African American intellectual history and cultural identity. To date, Johnson has incorporated elements / materials / items as diverse as CB radios, shea butter, literature, record covers, gilded rocks, black soap and tropical plants. Many of Johnson’s works convey rhythms of the occult and mystic: evoking his desire to transform and expand each included object’s field of association in the process of reception.
Warm-up + project:
A Rashid Johnson Sketchbook | MoMA
“I like that existential line-making: something that can change direction or get confused in the middle of being made. I think that’s a better representation of contemporary life and of how I see the world. I like to start in a certain direction and imagine I’m going that way, but really I’m open to a very hard turn in the other direction. I think it requires honesty and malleability to be humbled in the making of something to say, “Oh, wow. Is this the right way? Maybe I should change direction and make a hard turn and an uncomfortable turn.”
Please gather six pieces of paper or substrate for the warm-up.
The theme is taken from Rashid Johnsons Anxious Man exhibit on Feb 8, 2021
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We are going to warm up by making lines, and marks on the page. Each piece of paper will be complete in its entirety. However, what you learn as you create lines, marks, etc. on each page may inform the next piece. You may or may not complete 6, which is fine.
What you discover during your warm-up will inform the direction of your project.
Choose your papers and your materials, and let's just get started and see where this warm-up takes us.
As you are making your pieces see if you can get in touch with any anxiety or unrest you may be carrying.
This may be individual or universal as we all navigate the world as it is now and the influence it certainly has as we go forward in our lives.
Let's also pay attention as we are making our marks that the process is releasing energy as well and ultimately has the potential to yield joy and release as we get into the flow of mark making.
This is still playing!
Other work
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