Rashid Johnson - No More Water

Lismore Castle Arts is delighted to present the first major solo exhibition by Rashid Johnson in Ireland, encompassing large scale works on paper, two film works, and several new sculptural works made for the gardens.

Inspired by a childhood steeped in African American cultural influences, Rashid Johnson creates layered artworks that engage a conversation between personal biography and its relationship to larger cultural and historical narratives. Johnson works predominantly in mixed media sculptures, paintings, and drawings, combining bare materials such as mirror, wood, and shea butter with loaded iconic objects including record covers, CB radios, historical books, and common domestic objects.

For Lismore, Johnson is making a group of new sculptures employing his minimalist three-dimensional steel black grids, which will house a variety of objects including busts painted to resemble shea butter, and will act as a living greenhouse as plants in the gardens begin to intertwine with the sculpture over the summer months. The artist will also create several new sculptural works for the Upper Terrace of the Gardens, working with the Gardens team to use the sculptures as planters.

Within the gallery, Rashid responds to the vast gallery space by creating his largest drawings to date, and taking up the bulk of the main space. These new drawings explore the theme of anxiety that runs throughout the artist’s practice. The exhibition space will be book-ended by two film works, shot in 16mm and transferred to digital. The New Black Yoga (2011) and Samuel in Space (2013), explore the black male body as a site of reflection on histories past and progression towards rejuvenation and new meaning in the future.

The exhibition will be accompanied later in the summer by a fully illustrated catalogue, featuring install images of the exhibition at Lismore. The exhibition is kindly supported by Hauser & Wirth.