WAVE LENGTHS

Ahead of a new show at Hauser & Wirth Menorca, artist Rashid Johnson invites us into his Brooklyn studio to discuss migration, longing and togetherness

- OSMAN CAN YEREBAKAN

Boats have been populating Rashid Johnson's view lately, particularly in the last two years, after the artist started spending more time on the Hamptons side of Long Island. Since then, boats have unearthed connotations beyond vehicles or charming visual accents on the shore. The epiphany coincided with a heightened sense of solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement and with those struggling through the pandemic - unity, agency and co-existence, Johnson noticed, are notions contained both within his professional and personal circles and the likeness and purpose of a boat. During those long, idyllic days spent looking at the horizon, he heard numerous expressions of togetherness and, all being somewhat true, he also pondered the meaning of being in the same boat. What was the direction? Or who were his fellow travellers? Johnson's answers or at least his searches for them - are a series of paintings and sculptures with boat motifs in his new show at Hauser & Wirth's art centre in Menorca.

Proving that motivation works in mysterious ways, the Brooklyn-based artist - made the show's large-scale grid paintings, and four firepit sculptures encrusted with VHS tapes, a CB radio, a book, and oyster shells, while unaware of their intended venue. 'When the opportunity to show them surrounded by water arose, it was clear that the works belonged to Menorca,' he says.

Johnson's East Williamsburg studio which could well moonlight as a warehouse or a mini-factory - is occupied by a combination of works-in-progress and those waiting to dry. Standing amid canvases laid atop one another or leaned side by side, Johnson is dressed leisurely, in all black, on a breezy, slow-paced February afternoon, the kind of afternoon that deserves a chunky cookie, which he offers up.