95.25 x 69.85 cm
Monique Meloche is pleased to present her second solo exhibition with Rashid Johnson. Stay Black and Die takes it title from the first work in the series “Things I need to do” — an aggressive spray enamel on felt piece which premiered at LISTE 05: The Young Art Fair in Basel. This literary-minded artist has always placed an importance on his often elaborately titled works. However, Johnson has a small but significant set of works where text is employed visually beginning with the large-scale NEGRO 2001 (a unique Van-Dyke process photo of cotton seeds and black-eyed peas) to I Talk White 2003 (a photograph of text written with Luster’s Pink Lotion) to I wish I was white 2004 his first spray enamel piece made for Johnson’s solo project at LISTE 04. Although trained as photographer, Johnson has considerably expanded his practice to also include video, sculpture, and collaborative projects. A site-specific installation expanding on his broken table series Homage to Chinua Achebe will be the central focus of the exhibition vying for the attention of a life-size nude portrait of the artist as an homage to the painter Barkley Hendricks.
