Rashid Johnson: A Poem for Deep Thinkers

The Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago is pleased to present Rashid Johnson: A Poem for Deep Thinkers, a major survey covering nearly 30 years of Rashid Johnson’s (b. 1977, Chicago, IL; lives in New York) practice. The exhibition examines Johnson’s work from his perspective as a student of art history; a consumer and translator of Black popular, literary and intellectual culture; and a cultural participant in the age of globalization and its aftereffects. With works including photographs, videos, large-scale installations, immersive paintings and multimedia assemblages, A Poem for Deep Thinkers asks fundamental questions about the fragile human psyche in the face of ineffable historic forces. Johnson often says “the subject of my work is freedom,” and throughout the exhibition visitors will encounter pieces inspired by radical artistic and political movements from the 1960s to the 1990s that modeled how individuals and communities can resist established orders to carve out new paths through history.

A Poem for Deep Thinkers features more than 70 artworks spanning the full breadth of Johnson’s career, including works from his seminal The New Negro Escapist Social and Athletic Club series, the Cosmic Slops and other black-soap shelf paintings, spray-painted text works, and the Anxious Men and Broken Men series. Additionally, Johnson’s film and video projects will be displayed intermittently throughout the galleries. Johnson’s latest film Sanguine (2024) explores familial dynamics through the lens of the artist’s relationships with his father, brother, and son, and features a poem by the poet and activist Amiri Baraka. The subtitle of the exhibition also refers to Baraka and his poem of the same name from 1977.

A Poem for Deep Thinkers will be Johnson’s third solo exhibition at the MCA, following his early-career show in 2002 as part of the museum's 12 x 12 series, which was his first institutional exhibition, and his mid-career survey, A Message to Our Folks, 10 years later in 2012. The MCA will be the last stop during the tour of the exhibition, signaling a homecoming for the Chicago-born and raised artist. A catalogue accompanies the exhibition with essays from exhibition curators Naomi Beckwith and Andrea Karnes, along with contributions by Nana Adusei-Poku, Hendrik Folkerts, Tiona Nekkia McClodden, Kevin Quashie, and Odili Donald Odita.

Rashid Johnson: A Poem for Deep Thinkers was organized by Naomi Beckwith, Deputy Director and Jennifer and David Stockman Chief Curator, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, and Andrea Karnes, Chief Curator, Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth. The MCA presentation is curated by Jack Schneider, Assistant Curator.