Rashid Johnson

New York-based creative Rashid Johnson was born in Chicago and began his artistic journey fiercely probing elements of race and class at Columbia College in Chicago, receiving a BA in Photography. From there, he sharpened his skills in a masters program at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Early on, Johnson was drawn to a range of creative languages including installation, painting, sculpture, filmmaking, and drawing. He deftly utilized each to convey powerful storytelling and symbolism, especially within African American intellectual and imaginative life, and quickly became known for a perceptive exploration of everyday materials. Reaching deeply into his own childhood, history, and cultural identity, Johnson develops thrulines into personal and collective anxiety and interiority. 

The prolific artist has had a parade of trailblazing presentations throughout the world. Unforgettable works include a feature-length film, an adaptation of Richard Wright’s Native Son, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, released on HBO in 2019. His dynamic work is in the permanent collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Guggenheim Museum, New York; Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, and more.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Johnson captured the global mood with his Anxious Red Drawings series in deep red oil stick on cotton rag paper. Depicting crude faces with swirling eyes and gnashing mouths, the works evoked our collective feelings of anxiety and tension. The drawings came from an ongoing series, first imagined as a self-portrait, and looking to address his own experiences with stress and unease. At a time when worry abounded, Johnson managed to create an immediately recognizable symbol for anxiety. Anxious Men was an obvious choice to further explore with Liz Swig of LIZWORKS when she approached the artist in late 2019 to collaborate on a new collection of jewelry. The resulting line of ring bands, signet rings, military tags, and cuffs in gold and titanium featured agitated engravings punctuated by a single red stone. The collaboration managed to capture the spirit of 2020. Sales benefited the Black Mental Health Alliance and Prep for Prep.

In 2022, Johnson momentously received the 2022 amfAR Award of Excellence for Artistic Contributions to the Fight Against AIDS. The ceremony took place during the 23rd annual TWO x TWO for AIDS and Art black-tie gala in Dallas, which raised $9.4 million for amfAR, the Foundation for AIDS Research, and the Dallas Museum of Art. 

Further, in the fall of 2024 in Paris, Johnson raised the curtain on “Anima” at Hauser & Wirth Paris, a spiritual and expressive presentation offering an absorbing series of new pieces including sculpture, painting, and film. Here, the ever-evolving and poetic artist delved deeply into animism—the soulful realm of all living beings as well as objects. In their inaugural gallery show, Johnson’s Soul Paintings and God Paintings—works which the artist has devoted years to develop—were placed in spellbinding conversation with bronze sculptures. Highly textured and revealing the luminary’s every thoughtful mark, these pieces gave way to a new film titled Sanguine, focusing on Johnson’s father and son in relation to himself. 

In 2025, the Guggenheim Museum in New York debuts a must-see, major mid-career survey on Johnson. “Rashid Johnson: A Poem for Deep Thinkers” is on view April 18 – January 18, 2026, and will also travel to the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth.