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Rashid Johnson: Blocks

Rashid Johnson: Blocks
Library Shelf Location 18.JOHN
Publication Date 2016
Description

A Minimalist Sculpture Becomes a Greenhouse. The High Line is a 1.45-mile stretch of disused elevate freight tracks on Manhattan's West Side that was converted into a park between 2006 and 2014. In 2015, the American artist Rashid Johnson (b. Chicago, Ill., 1977; lives and works in New York, N.Y.) installed a publicly accessible sculpture on the tracks. Commissioned by the High Line Art program, it consisted of a shelf-like black metal construction that housed a number of bright yellow busts. Blocks presents comprehensive photographic documentation of the eponymous work's evolving interaction with the lush vegetation into which it intervened. Over the course of the full year for which the sculpture stood on the site, plants of different species grew through its grid structure, lending it a forever changing aspect as the seasons passed. The pictures illustrate the poetic quality of the time-limited relationship between a man-made construction and nature, touching on themes such as optimism, failure, regeneration, and desolation. A conversation between Cecilia Alemani, chief curator of High Line Art, and Rashid Johnson sheds light on the genesis of Blocks and the artist's approach to making work for public settings.

ISBN 9783954761685
Quantity 1
Pages 72p; 19.2 x 1.2 x 27.7 cm
Author Michaela Unterdörfer
Format Softcover
Publisher Distanz Publishing
Related Artist Rashid Johnson
Categories Artist (relating to a single artist/collaborative team), Sculpture
Artist's Nationality American (USA)
Language English

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