“We hadn’t seen these grand gestures since earlier than the peak of the COVID pandemic, so we’re all so excited to have the museum return to type as a constructing that evokes artists to take dangers and play with the structure,” says Naomi Beckwith, deputy director and Jennifer and David Stockman Chief Curator of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. Beckwith co-curated “A Poem for Deep Thinkers” with Andrea Karnes, interim director and chief curator of the Fashionable Artwork Museum of Fort Price, Texas, the place the exhibition will likely be on view from March 8 by means of October 4, 2026, earlier than touring to the Museum of Modern Artwork Chicago.
Beckwith continues, “Rashid Johnson’s specific intervention is a superb echo of Frank Lloyd Wright’s need to at all times have residing vegetation within the constructing. Like Wright, Rashid believes {that a} museum is a residing, respiration entity that may home vivacity and life—not simply nonetheless objects.”
Hidden amongst Sanguine’s vegetation is a piano, which will likely be activated with performances all through the exhibition’s run. A strong sequence of performances and public packages (cultural companions embody the Academy of American Poets and Harlem Faculty of the Arts) can even happen on a stage that Johnson designed for the rotunda flooring.
“I’ve thought so much in my work about platforming. I’ve had many alternatives to have my voice amplified as an artist, and I actually like the concept that you may create a stage for folks in several communities to have a voice,” says Johnson. In 2022, for instance, he introduced a participatory set up referred to as Stage at MoMA PS1 that drew on the historical past of the microphone as a instrument for protest and public oratory. “I see this as a possibility for me to be taught from them and perceive how different persons are seeing the world.” (A former member of the Guggenheim’s board of trustees, Johnson has additionally been a supporter and funder of the museum’s internship program.)
With a lot to ponder in his works, in addition to in future performances, the artist urges guests to return to the exhibition. “Simply give me two days,” he says. “Two visits.”
“Rashid Johnson: A Poem for Deep Thinkers” is on vew on the Guggenheim by means of January 18.
