Rashid Johnson

A young black man named Bigger Thomas takes a job working for a highly influential Chicago family, a decision that will change the course of his life forever.

Seven minutes in length, the film features two black male hikers — one ascending a mountain, another descending — who encounter each other as their paths cross. Their balletic movements are at once lithe and halting, athletic and awkward, challenging stereotypical notions of the forever rhythmic elegance of the black body in space.

In the film “Sanguine”, the divine and anima in all things is a strong undertone. Nature is very present: the ocean, flowers, trees, the heat of the sun and that vibrant red color is felt. The color also evokes the notion of family. The figures that inhabit the film are Johnson, his son Julius, and his father Jimmie. Through these generations Johnson allows you to see across time, to feel time and the cycle of life.

Rashid Johnson’s installations frequently take the form of embellished support structures that display found objects, imbuing them with a new significance that hovers between the archaeological and the talismanic. These collections of items—which together build an iconography that spans literature, music, intellectual history, and echoes of the artist’s childhood in Chicago—reflect deeply personal references interwoven with pervasive cultural narratives.

On the surface, Black and Blue appears to be a “day in life” of a protagonist, played by Johnson. It begins with him waking up in bed and getting ready in the bathroom. Filmed in his home and featuring his family, Black and Blue takes its title from the Fats Waller jazz standard (popularized by Louis Armstrong), which can be heard in the video (played on the piano by Johnson’s son). The film is also connected to Johnson’s work and artistic practice, showing interspersed clips of his own as well as artworks by other Black artists (like Deana Lawson), books ( like Roy deCarava), and traditional African masks in his home.