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Rashid Johnson Quotes
Rashid Johnson Quotes
Rashid Johnson
American
Photographer
Born:
1977
Father
Me
Mother
Space
Work
You
Related authors:
Annie Leibovitz
Ansel Adams
Berenice Abbott
Diane Arbus
Dorothea Lange
Gordon Parks
Imogen Cunningham
Robert Mapplethorpe
I'd begun to collect things that were lying in piles on the floor of my studio. I had run out of space, and I started to build shelves. I turned around one day and realized that that was the vehicle for carrying so many of the things that I was looking at and talking about, so they went from the walls to the works.
Rashid Johnson
Day
Walls
Space
Looking
Build
Lying
One Day
Out
Collect
Run
Carrying
About
Had
Studio
Vehicle
Talking
Around
Piles
Shelves
Were
Begun
Turned
Realized
Many
Works
Floor
Things
Started
I say that I suffer from what Rosalind Krauss was calling the post-medium condition, where an artist essentially employs several mediums in order to bring to life whatever specific ideas that they have. For me it's always been that way.
Rashid Johnson
Life
Me
Whatever
Mediums
Way
Say
Several
Ideas
Employs
Calling
Always
Been
Condition
Artist
Essentially
Where
Order
Suffer
Specific
Bring
My father owned a small company, called Gundel Electronics, where he did community band radio and some repair stuff.
Rashid Johnson
Father
Band
Community
Some
Small
He
Stuff
Repair
Did
Owned
Where
Radio
Company
Electronics
My mother introduced me to more academic-minded writers, Cornel West and Skip Gates. In her library, I came across, when I was very young, Harold Cruse's 'The Crisis of the Negro Intellectual,' which is like a bible of Negro intellectuals from Frederick Douglass to Amiri Baraka.
Rashid Johnson
Me
Library
Bible
Mother
Young
Harold
Crisis
Introduced
Frederick
More
Writers
Like
Came
West
Intellectual
Intellectuals
Very
Which
Across
Skip
Her
Gates
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
Work
Me
Mother
First
Kid
Introduction
Poems
Dead
Read
Been
Lecturer
Quite
Quite A While
While
Interested
Used
I was going through a divorce, and I had a lot of reading I was doing, and I developed what was probably a serious anxiety problem - because I was about as poor as you can get, in graduate school, and trying to make my work and keep my head above water.
Rashid Johnson
Work
You
Anxiety
Problem
Water
School
Reading
About
Above
Through
Had
Developed
Head
Divorce
Make
Because
Doing
Lot
Get
Trying
Graduate
Going
Graduate School
Poor
Serious
Keep
I started rereading 'The Dutchman' - I kind of just pulled it off the shelf.
Rashid Johnson
Kind
Shelf
Off
Just
Started
Pulled
What I really hoped to do with my work was to at least be able to define my relationship to race.
Rashid Johnson
Work
Relationship
Define
Hoped
Able
Least
Race
Really
My composition often goes toward the black middle class or the black super-wealthy or strong historical black figures.
Rashid Johnson
Class
Strong
Black
Composition
Toward
Historical
Goes
Often
Middle
Middle Class
Figures
The thing that turned out to be interesting about CB radios was the ability to call out in the world with anonymity. You choose your handle. Race and class become non-signifiers.
Rashid Johnson
You
Class
World
Become
Out
Ability
About
Anonymity
Call
Handle
Interesting
Race
Turned
Your
Choose
Thing
When I was younger, I remember there was a really famous book, and it was called 'The People Could Fly.' And so this idea of, kind of like, black characters kind of jumping into space and kind of the challenge that they presented to gravity I thought was really interesting.
Rashid Johnson
Book
People
Remember
Space
Challenge
Fly
Thought
Black
Characters
Kind
Could
Idea
Like
Jumping
Famous
Interesting
Younger
Really
Gravity
Presented
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
Time
Thinking
About
Could
Attempted
Idea
Particularly
How
German
Yoga
Move
Just
Movement
Successful
Started
The way that light hits objects, I think, is one of the more important things that sculpture and photography share.
Rashid Johnson
Photography
Light
Important
Important Things
Think
Way
Objects
More
Share
Hits
Sculpture
Things
I don't have any other skills. Some artists say that to mean that their embodied passion for art gave them no choice. I say it, very specifically, to say that I really didn't have any other options.
Rashid Johnson
Art
Passion
Other
Gave
Say
No Choice
Embodied
Some
Very
Options
Any
Artists
Mean
Them
Really
Choice
Skills
Specifically
Oh, yeah, I'm all about ritual.
Rashid Johnson
About
Ritual
Yeah
Oh
Oh Yeah
You can really learn a lot from young people and the way they view the world.
Rashid Johnson
You
People
World
Young
Way
Learn
Lot
Young People
Really
View
As an undergrad at Columbia College in Chicago, I came across 'Boondocks,' and then I watched the 'Boondocks' television show.
Rashid Johnson
College
Television
Television Show
Columbia
Came
Chicago
Then
Across
Show
Watched
The whole ability to look at the complexity of race and any sort of associated -ism and still find humor, that's a very interesting space.
Rashid Johnson
Space
Humor
Complexity
Find
Ability
Look
Sort
Still
Very
Any
Interesting
Race
Whole
Associated
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
Character
Black
Way
Perceive
Scholar
Had
Academic
Always
Intellectual
Whether
Interest
Activist
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
Marry
Components
Get
Different
Them
Viewer
Who
Bring
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