Extending the entire rotunda of the museum, The exhibition is Johnson's first solo show at the Guggenheim, his largest exhibition to date and the first extensive museum retrospective devoted to his work in over a decade. Rashid Johnson: A Poem for Deep Thinkers brings together more than ninety works, including an outdoor sculpture and new works created specifically for the exhibition, two of which will be activated through ongoing performances.
The exhibition spans pivotal phases of Johnson’s career, including seminal series such as The New Negro Escapist Social and Athletic Club, Cosmic Slops, black soap shelf paintings, spray-painted text works, the more recent Anxious Men and Broken Men series, and large-scale indoor and outdoor sculptures. The exhibition offers a rough timeline of Johnson’s artistic evolution over nearly three decades, tracing cycles of social alienation, self-analysis, and artistic freedom. From his early explorations of photography, video, and installation to his recent ventures into materially hybridized paintings and assemblages, Johnson brings nuanced explorations of the human psyche in the context of the profound historical influences of our time, while also reflecting on issues of masculinity, parenting, and the care of self and others.
The title from a poem by Baraka
The title of the exhibition, A Poem for Deep Thinkers, takes its name from a poem by Amiri Baraka, an American poet, writer, teacher, and political activist, whose work is a frequent source of inspiration for Johnson.
A large steel sculpture will welcome visitors
Approaching the museum, visitors are greeted by Johnson’s outdoor sculpture, Black Steel in the Hour of Chaos (2008), a large steel sculpture with graphic design-inspired cut lines and gunsight references, reminiscent of Jasper Johns’s target-focused work. Directly influenced by hip-hop pioneers Public Enemy, the work invites the viewer to question who is in control. Inside the museum, the rotunda floor features Untitled (2025), a new mosaic work made specifically for the Guggenheim exhibition, along with Rotunda Stage (2025), an interactive performance space. Ascending the first flight, visitors are greeted by Johnson's photograph Self-Portrait Laying on Jack Johnson's Grave (2006), an early work that explores cultural origins, linking the artist's last name and his roots in Chicago (where the grave is located) to the first black heavyweight boxer whose victory over a white fighter in 1910 sparked race riots.
Johnson explains: “This exhibition continues the dialogue I have always invested in: a dialogue that allows freedom of expression and awareness of artistic possibilities. I have always embraced fluidity between media. For me, the specificity of the medium has never been the goal: it is about how the project can move freely between different forms, creating space for a broader dialogue that goes beyond the limits of a single medium.".
The artist: Rashid Johnson
Born in Chicago in 1977, Rashid Johnson received a BA in Photography from Columbia College Chicago, followed by postgraduate studies at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where he honed his multidisciplinary practice. Johnson has a long association with the Guggenheim as an exhibiting artist (most recently in “By Way Of: Material and Motion” at the Guggenheim Collection in 2024 and “Storylines: Contemporary Art at the Guggenheim” in 2015), as well as a supporter and funder of the museum’s internship program; and has served on the museum’s Board of Trustees. He also has four works in the Guggenheim Collection, spanning painting, sculpture, film, and video. His work has been exhibited at the Art Institute of Chicago, the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Detroit Institute of Arts, the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, the Corcoran Museum of Art in Washington, DC, the Institute of Contemporary Photography in New York, and the Museum of Contemporary Photography in New York. the Brooklyn Museum of Art in New York, and the Museum of Contemporary Art.
The curators of the exhibition
The exhibition is curated by Naomi Beckwith, Deputy Director, and Jennifer and David Stockman, Chief Curators, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and Foundation, New York, and Andrea Karnes, Interim Director and Chief Curator, Modern Art Museum, Fort Worth, Texas, with additional support from Faith Hunter, Assistant Curator, Guggenheim, New York.
