Rashid Johnson, The Reader, 2008, a photograph

Museum of Contemporary Art ChicagoNear North Side / Streeterville

Rashid Johnson: A Poem for Deep Thinkers

Trwa7 listopada 2026 – 25 kwietnia 202722 $

More than 70 works span the Chicago-born artist's career, from his New Negro Escapist Social and Athletic Club photographs to the Anxious Men and Broken Men series.

Kup bilety Strona wystawy

Więcej: Chicago

Trwają teraz Cały program: listopad 2026

Zapowiedź: napisana przed otwarciem wystawy

Somewhere inside Antoine's Organ, a black steel grid thick with plants, books and video screens, there's a hidden piano. On set dates, musicians improvise from inside it for 30 minutes at the top of the hour. Space is tight, so the MCA asks you to keep moving during a set: the one gig in Chicago where leaving mid-song is polite.

Around it are more than 70 works in the Griffin Galleries, from the New Negro Escapist Social and Athletic Club photographs to black soap and wax reliefs and the Anxious Men and Broken Men series. It's the Chicago-born artist's third MCA solo show, after 2002 and 2012.

Reviewing the larger Guggenheim run in 2025, ARTnews called it "revelatory", while Hyperallergic's Seph Rodney saw books everywhere and wondered "where the apprehended knowledge shows up." The Organ has books of its own, so judge for yourself. Admission covers it ($22, $19 for Chicago residents, free 18 and under), and Tuesdays run to 9pm, free for Illinois residents from 5pm.

Wybór redakcji

Antoine's Organ, stalowa konstrukcja z roślinami, książkami i ekranami wideo, skrywa pianino, na którym muzycy grają, siedząc wewnątrz. Wokół niej zgromadzono ponad 70 prac z dorobku artysty urodzonego w Chicago. ARTnews określił obszerniejszą wersję wystawy w Guggenheim jako „objawienie”.

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Antoine's Organ
A black steel scaffold grid filled with plants in Johnson's handmade ceramic pots, books, domestic objects and monitors looping his early films, with a piano hidden at its centre.
The Reader (2008)
Johnson lies on a chaise longue in a white robe, holding a red-covered book up so it hides his face.
Self-Portrait with My Hair Parted Like Frederick Douglass (2003)
Johnson poses with the abolitionist's hairstyle in a print over four and a half feet tall, big enough, ARTnews noted, to see every pore.
The New Negro Escapist Social and Athletic Club
Black-and-white portraits of members of a fictional club of Black intellectuals, inspired by the ideas of W.E.B. Du Bois.
The Anxious Men
Faces drawn in black soap and wax, their eyes scratched round and round in tight circles and their mouths a grid of gritted abrasions.

Dla kogo

Wieczorne wizyty
Pasjonaci

Z dziećmi

Free for anyone 18 and under. Family Day: Hibernate, Meditate (12 December, 11am to 3pm) is built around Johnson's work, is free to attend and has ASL interpretation.