I can bring in all these different components, and I marry these components, and I let them get traversed by the viewer, who reorganizes them. Rashid Johnson Read Quote
I’ve always had an interest in complicating the way that we perceive the black character, whether it’s the black academic or scholar or activist or black intellectual. Rashid Johnson Read Quote
As an undergrad at Columbia College in Chicago, I came across ‘Boondocks,’ and then I watched the ‘Boondocks’ television show. Rashid Johnson Read Quote
Dealing with actors is incredibly complex because they oftentimes are like pieces of clay. They want to be told how you want it done. You have to then decide if you want to be the teller or if you want to give them agency. Rashid Johnson Read Quote
I’ve been interested in LeRoi Jones/Amiri Baraka’s work for quite a while. My first introduction to LeRoi Jones was when my mother used to read me the ‘Dead Lecturer’ poems when I was a kid. Rashid Johnson Read Quote
I started rereading ‘The Dutchman’ – I kind of just pulled it off the shelf. Rashid Johnson Read Quote
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 Read Quote
My father ran a CB radio business. I grew up in a cluttered space that was filled with radios and antennas. It felt alien. Rashid Johnson Read Quote
As an artist, I’ve always felt most comfortable outside of the art supply store. So domestic materials are the ones that most help inform what I’m trying to talk about and our familiarity as a whole – kind of the collective us, I guess. Rashid Johnson Read Quote
I attempted to do yoga in German, and it was not particularly successful. So at that time, I started thinking about the idea of just movement and how I could move to de-stress. Rashid Johnson Read Quote
