His early work was distinguished by a unique photo-printing process to achieve a painterly texture to prints, with The New York Times describing some of his black-and-white photography as “spectacularly rich.” As a photography major, Johnson earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Columbia College Chicago and a Master of Fine Arts from School of the Art Institute of Chicago, after which he taught in the Lower East Side of New York City at Pratt Institute.
« I wanted my art to deal with very formal concerns and to deal with very material concerns, and to deal with antecedents and art history, which for me go very far beyond just the influence of African-American artists. »
Rashid Johnson
Sometimes referred to as an artist-magician, Johnson creates and disseminat
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His early work was distinguished by a unique photo-printing process to achieve a painterly texture to prints, with The New York Times describing some of his black-and-white photography as “spectacularly rich.” As a photography major, Johnson earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Columbia College Chicago and a Master of Fine Arts from School of the Art Institute of Chicago, after which he taught in the Lower East Side of New York City at Pratt Institute.
« I wanted my art to deal with very formal concerns and to deal with very material concerns, and to deal with antecedents and art history, which for me go very far beyond just the influence of African-American artists. »
Rashid Johnson
Sometimes referred to as an artist-magician, Johnson creates and disseminates societal and cultural norms and expectations as they relate to the black experience. Much of his mixed-media work plays with concepts of race through contradiction and symbolism of coded references. Having earned national acclaim, Johnson’s work is held in some of the world’s leading art museums.
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