Rashid Johnson

About the Exhibition

‘The most interesting thing is what it is itself…’—Vija CeminsRashid Johnson often incorporates objects taken from his home, studio, and childhood into his work. For his exhibition at Hauser & Wirth Southampton, he has extended that tendency, gathering artworks that engage the quotidian as a powerful aesthetic conceit.The earliest work on view is John Smith’s film ‘The Girl Chewing Gum’ (1976), a playful depiction of an everyday street scene, coupled with the artist’s voice-over. The slow humdrum of people walking and cars driving past, layered with the artist’s seemingly simple narration, yields a work at the intersection of documentary and art, engaged with the complexities of language-image relationships. Willie Cole’s ‘Domestic Shields’ (1992) appropriate an electric steam iron to sear a pattern of distinct markings onto an ironing board, evoking the domestic labor of many African American women throughout history, and questioning African identity and selfhood.Also on view will be a series of works that employ repetitive mark making, including Vija Celmins’ 2010 medita­tive mezzotint print depicting the expansiveness of space through clusters of stars in a dark night sky. Celmins evokes the sublime while denying it, by drawing attention back to the painstaking process through which she achieved the image. Repetitive impressions also figure centrally in a basketball drawing made by David Ham­mons dated from 1995 – 2010. Here, the artist uses a ball covered in dirt and charcoal as his drawing tool, subverting the language of abstraction. Both Celmins and Hammons display in these works their remarkable skills in construction and assembly, and an uncanny knack for representing both process and outcome.Works on view by Jennifer Bartlett, Wolfgang Laib and Mary Heilmann investigate primary shapes and forms. Bartlett’s ‘Untitled (House)’ (2014) and Laib’s ‘Untitled (Stairs)’ (2002) make up the architectural elements of domestic spaces and immediate surroundings, following in the art historical tradition of Minimalism. Heilmann, a Hamptons local, will present painting and furniture that transcend the seemingly opaque structures of geometric abstraction, weaving the artist’s ideology into the everyday form of a chair.

Southampton Summer Outdoor Sculpture

Beginning this summer, Hauser & Wirth artists will present a number of significant outdoor sculptures in and around the Village of Southampton. Martin Creed’s multicolored neon work ‘EVERYTHING IS GOING TO BE ALRIGHT’ (2010) will be on view at the Parrish Art Museum beginning 28 May, while the gallery’s space will host several works by Spanish sculptor Eduardo Chillida and French-American master Louise Bourgeois, whose large hanging sculptures, both ‘Untitled’ (2004) will hang amid the verdant branches of trees in the garden of the Southampton Arts Center.Later in the summer, Hauser & Wirth will also present outdoor sculptural works by Nicole Eisenman and Henry Taylor. Executed in cast bronze and aluminum, Eisenman’s outdoor works are considered landmarks of her esteemed artistic practice. Henry Taylor’s monumental work ‘Untitled,’ (2020) – the artist’s first outdoor bronze sculpture – will have its US debut in conjunction with the artist’s solo exhibition at the gallery’s Southampton location, opening 1 July.