Naomi Bekwith, Deputy Director and Jennifer and Jennifer and Jennifer and David Stockman Chief Curator Naomi Bekwith says, “We have not seen these grand gestures before the height of Kovid epidemic, so we are very excited to make the museum as a building, which inspires the artists to play with the risks and the architecture,” The “a poem for a poem” co-cuisted with Andrea Carnes, the interim director and the main curator of the modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, Texas, where the exhibition will be seen before traveling to the Museum of Contemporary Kala Chicago from 8 March to 4 October 2026.
Bakewith continues, “Rashid Johnson’s special intervention is always a wonderful echo of the desire for living plants in the building of Frank Lloyd Wright. Like the Right, Rashid believes that a museum is a living, breathing unit that can live in the house that can live in the house – there are still no objects.”
Hidden optimisticThe vegetation is a piano, which will be activated with a performance in the exhibition run. A strong range of performances and public events (cultural partners include the Academy of American Poets and Harlem School of Arts) will also be on a platform, designed by Johnson for the rotunda floor.
“I have thought a lot in my work about platforming. I have many opportunities to raise my voice as an artist, and I really like the idea that you can create a platform for people from different communities,” Johnson says. In 2022, for example, he presented a participant installation, named stage In the MOMA PS1 which was attracted to the history of microphone as a tool for protest and public sprity. “I see this as an opportunity to learn from them and understand how other people are looking at the world.” (Johnson, a former member of the Trustee Board of Gugneheim, has also been a supporter and funder of the internship program of the museum.)
To consider his tasks, as well as in future performances, the artist urges visitors to return to the exhibition. “Just give me two days,” they say. “Two trips.”
“Rashid Johnson: A poem for deep thinkers” VEW has been at VEW from 18 January.
