Rashid Johnson: Within Our Gates, Garage Museum of Contemporary Art, 2016
New York-based artist Rashid Johnson is well known for his immersive installations featuring living pants and all sorts of cultural references emphasising the lived experience. For Johnson’s latest project in Moscow, the artist produced an even larger installation using a towering grid structure that houses a unique, living ecosystem for visitors to explore.
Entitled “Within Our Gates” the work integrates tropical plants with sculptural elements, moving image, sound, and everyday objects in a poetic world where fictions, facts, and speculations merge. Being his first project in Russia, this is also the largest work the artist has ever made. Sleek met Johnson ahead of his Moscow opening to discuss gallery relationships, his current priorities as an artist, and the pop culture references in his work.
How did you come up with the idea to create this installation here at the Garage museum? How was the project born?
Rashid Johnson: It was really born from the relationship that I prior had with the chief curator Kate Fowle. When I came to Garage I knew about the possibility to make something here and I got an opportunity to do it. She approached me to make an exhibition.
What is the difference between the installation “Within our gates” and for example “Smile” which you showed last year a Hauser & Wirth? Will you continue this series further?
Scale, without question, is the main difference. The work is involved and some of my concerns and understandings can be built in the structure and how it is inhabited and changed, I learn through the process how this installation comes to life. It’s very natural. I am never really able to predict where the work will go. I think there will be an opportunity for me to continue this work but there is also an opportunity for me to work in other ways. I am excited to continue to explore different approaches.
Which project would you refer to as the most important in your artistic life? Does such a phenomenon as “artistic life” actually exist for you?
I think the most important project for me is the one I am working on currently because I am learning through the process. Learning more about myself, learning more about being an artist, being a person, a husband, a father. Whatever I am working on is the thing that I feel.
Where do you dream of showing your work?
I don’t have any dream places to show my work. I’ve been able to show my work at so many places, I’ve been excited for people to be able to participate. I would like to continue thinking that way and to be exhibited at the places that keep me enthusiastic.
You are working with Hauser & Wirth – one of the most influential galleries in the art world. How is it to be a superstar artist, whose work is on a waiting list?
Honestly, I don’t think about it a lot, but my relationship to Hauser & Wirth is a personal one. I have a strong personal relationship with Manuela and Ivan. Some of the other aspects and things are not under my control and I don’t have much engagement. But it’s good that people are excited about my work.
Rashid Johnson: Within Our Gates, Garage Museum of Contemporary Art, 2016
Rashid Johnson: Within Our Gates, Garage Museum of Contemporary Art, 2016
How do you personally choose a gallery to work with? What factors influence your decision?
I think it’s just what feels best. Choosing a gallery is like choosing a life partner, somebody you can grow with and be with for many years. It’s about a personality and it’s about having similar goals and expectations and facing those challenges together and hopefully being able to fulfill a lot of things in life and career.
There are a lot of references to pop culture in “Within Our Gates.” How did you decide which films, books and objects to include?
I wanted to have the piece be legible not only to an English-speaking audience. I wanted to include ideas and concerns that were existing in the books that were published in America and here in Russia. I chose them very naturally: things I am interested in, engaged with, things I think are in parallel and in conversation which produce contradictions and raise points around topics that I investigate.
You were present at the preview and willing to talk to everyone. Why is it important for you to discuss your work with gallery visitors?
Sometimes I think that it’s important, sometimes I don’t think these things are so important. When I am present I am happy to engage and to talk, to share ideas. When I am not present, I like when people participate and see how they feel. I never make any artwork with the expectation that the implication of my voice should change the reading or be a dictating factor in the way to interpret it.
Which artists influenced and inspired you while you were studying and have there been any additions as time goes on?
You know, there is a long list. From Franz Kline to Henri Cartier-Bresson, Robert Frank, David Hammons, Joseph Beuys, Lawrence Weiner. I would just mention those few and say that there are many many more.
What projects should we wait for in the nearest future?
The next show I have coming up is at 18th Street at Hauser & Wirth in New York.
Rashid Johnson: Within Our Gates, Garage Museum of Contemporary Art, 2016
Rashid Johnson’s installation “Within Our Gates” is on view at the Garage Museum of Contemporary Art in Moscow until 31 August 2016