Rashid Johnson

Rashid Johnson (b. 1977, Chicago) works across painting, sculpture, photography, film and installation. He earned a BA in photography from Columbia College Chicago and pursued graduate studies at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Drawing on art history, philosophy, literature and music, he has developed a distinct visual language that engages themes such as race and masculinity. He is influenced by the radical artistic and political movements of the 1960s through the 1990s, the era of his parents' activism and his own education. In 2025 the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum presented "Rashid Johnson: A Poem for Deep Thinkers," a survey of more than ninety works. His touring exhibition "Message to Our Folks" was shown at the Miami Art Museum, now PAMM, and at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago in 2012, and his work has been exhibited at the Whitney and the Walker Art Center. He lives and works in New York.