CORY REYNOLDS | DATE 5/26/2021

A glimmer of hope in new release, 'Rashid Johnson: The Hikers'

In 2019, American artist Rashid Johnson debuted the powerful site-specific film, choreographed performance and exhibition The Hikers at the Aspen Art Museum—produced in collaboration with Museo Tamayo and Hauser & Wirth New York under the auspices of the prestigious 2018 Aspen Award for Art. Featured here is a photograph of the performance, choreographed with Claudia Schreier, in front of the sixteen-foot-long Untitled Escape Collage (2019)—comprised of such varied materials as ceramic tile, mirror tile, braded red oak flooring, vinyl, spray enamel, oil stick, black soap and wax. The photograph, by Tony Prikryl, is reproduced from the extraordinary new 440-page, 9.5 x 13-inch, Swiss-bound exhibition catalog, which features remarkable documentation of the work in all three venues, as well as a conversation between Johnson and Schreier and insightful essays by curators Manuela Moscoso and Heidi Zuckerman, who quotes the artist, “I’m probably concerned about a lot of the same things that many of you are concerned about, to be completely honest. I’m concerned about us. I’m concerned about you guys. I’m concerned about the world that my son is going to be inheriting. He’s six years old. I’m concerned about my personal anxiety disorder. I’m concerned about race relations, gender issues, issues around homophobia, issues around how institutions function, the environment. If you can name an ‘ism,’ I’m probably concerned about that ‘ism.’”