Filmstill from "Black and Blue" — Rashid Johnson, Black and Blue, 2021 Filmstill © Rashid Johnson

Seven Rooms and a Garden

Rashid Johnson and The Moderna Museet Collection

30.9 2023 – 22.9 2024

Stockholm

The collection

In “Seven Rooms and a Garden: Rashid Johnson and The Moderna Museet Collection”, the work of American artist and filmmaker Rashid Johnson is in conversation, confrontation, and sometimes collusion with the collection of Moderna Museet. Each room in the exhibition (and the garden) stages an encounter based on the personal, political, and art historical relationships that Johnson holds in his practice.

For Rashid Johnson, abstraction is a source of life. In his “Bruise” and “God” paintings, the abstract mark is an expression of a spiritual or psychological journey. His monumental installation “Home” (2023) finds form for Black intellectual and cultural histories, in sheabutter sculptures, books, and the growth of plant life. His film “Black and Blue” (2021) is an abstract self-portrait through daily, intimate acts that together describe a life.

In all the works and interventions in “Seven Rooms and a Garden”, Johnson explores the gesture of abstraction as an art historical lineage, a political necessity, or a personal appeal.

We invite you to meet Rashid Johnson — through Soufiane Ababri, Etel Adnan, Karel Appel, Louis Armstrong, Kevin Beasley, Lee Bontecou, Snežana Vučetić Bohm, Louise Bourgeois, Tony Cokes, Lena Cronqvist, Jean Dubuffet, Cecilia Edefalk, Esra Ersen, Elliott Erwitt, Marcel Duchamp, Max Ernst, Jean Fautrier, Samuel Fosso, Sam Francis, Ellen Gallagher, Herbert Gentry, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Marcia Hafif, David Hammons, Every Ocean Hughes, Toshimitsu Imaï, Asger Jorn, Tadeusz Kantor, On Kawara, Willem de Kooning, Sol LeWitt, Klara Lidén, Lee Lozano, Henri Matisse, Ernest Mancoba, Santiago Mostyn, Barnett Newman, Maia Cruz Palileo, Niki de Saint Phalle, Jackson Pollock, Robert Rauschenberg, Melissa Shook, Cauleen Smith, Sun-Ra, Salman Toor, Cy Twombly, Ruben Valentim, Stanley Whitney, Charles Atlas, Robert Breer and Andy Warhol.

Exhibition Guide

Listen to Rashid Johnson’s playlist with songs to accompany you through the garden and the seven rooms of the exhibition.

Seven Rooms and a Garden: Audio guide

Read about some of the artworks from the Moderna Museet collection featured in the exhibition.

Seven Rooms and a Garden: Texts

Watch a conversation between Rashid Johnson and curator Hendrik Folkerts.

Seven Rooms and a Garden: Video

Thinking-in-Action

Read a conversation between Rashid Johnson and cultural critic Kevin Quashie.

”Thinking-in-Action: A Conversation between Rashid Johnson and Kevin Quashie” (pdf)

Screening and book release

Join a one-time screening of Rashid Johnson’s new film “Sanguine” (2024). The screening will be followed by a book signing with Rashid Johnson, launching the new pocketbook “On the Blue Stage: A Conversation Between Rashid Johnson and Hendrik Folkerts”.

Date

Friday 14 June 2024

Time

At 18.00–18.45

See more from the conversation at the Exhibition Guide.

Rashid Johnson, Black and Blue, 2021 Filmstill © Rashid Johnson

”Seven Rooms and a Garden: Rashid Johnson and The Moderna Museet Collection” is the third exhibition in the new presentation of the Moderna Museet collection.

Curator: Hendrik Folkerts

The exhibition is generously supported by
The Terra Foundation for American Art
The American Friends of the Moderna Museet
The Rashid Johnson Exhibition Circle:
Pontus Bonnier
Christel and Peter Engelbert
Anna and Misha Moeremans
Caisa and Åke Skeppner

Exhibition Guide

In the Moderna Museet exhibition guide, you will find audio guides, texts and other material aimed at making the visit to the museum more accessible. …