The Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture has received an artwork from Black artist Rashid Johnson, on loan from his representative, Hauser & Wirth.
The 20-foot-by-7.5-foot painting, titled “Bruise Painting ‘Message to Our Folks,’” is now on view at the Heritage Hall space. The artwork addresses the impact of social change and the uncertainty of living in a period of both reckoning and healing.
“Rashid Johnson’s Bruise Painting ‘Message to Our Folks’ is the culmination of the extraordinary series of Bruise Paintings the artist began in 2021, joining the host of stellar artworks in our Heritage Hall,” said Kevin Young, the museum’s Andrew W. Mellon director. “By referring in both color and title to the blues, the music that provides the blueprint for all American music, Johnson helps us match the museum’s mission to tell the American story through an African-American lens. I love how this, and his other works continue a conversation around history, tragedy, and triumph — here in paint rendering a range of tones, from light blue to almost black, suggestive of skin and questions of color.”
The “Bruise” paintings draw on the song “(What Did I Do to Be So) Black and Blue” by Fats Waller, Harry Brooks and Andy Razaf — made popular in a recording by Louis Armstrong — which directly links the blues to Blackness.
Johnson, considered a leading contemporary American artist, was born in Chicago and studied at Columbia College and the School of the Art Institute in Chicago. He began his career as a photographer in the early 2000s and eventually moved to New York City working in sculpture, painting, drawing, filmmaking, and installation.
In 2016, Johnson became the first artist to join the Guggenheim Foundation’s Board of Trustees. His first feature-length film, a modern adaptation of Richard Wright’s book, “Native Son,” premiered in 2019 with acclaim at the Sundance Film Festival. He has had solo exhibitions across the U.S. and Europe as well as in Canada, Mexico, Russia and Hong Kong.
For more information, go to nmaahc.si.edu.