Rashid Johnson: Sodade at Hauser & Wirth Menorca
The exhibition presents a newly developed series of bronze sculptures and Seascape paintings, alongside Bruise Paintings and Surrender Paintings, the latter of which is the latest offering to evolve from the iconography of his long-established Anxious Men series. The works are accompanied by the Education Lab, which provides a creative learning programme for diverse audiences throughout the duration of the exhibition.
Capturing both subjective and collective historical states in real time, the artist has pivoted the Anxious Red paintings iconography, which portrayed crowds of bright red faces, to Bruise Paintings and Surrender Paintings in hues of blues and whites. Johnson selects his typical materials and tools—such as shea butter and black soap—for the importance of their historical narratives. Here he has chosen to use the canonically significant, and universally recognizable, medium of oil paint in order to communicate his message all the more urgently.
In ‘Sodade,’ Rashid Johnson continues to incorporate diverse materials rich with symbolism and personal history, exploring collective narratives of longing and migration while providing a poignant sense of history now.