silvergelatine photography, passepartout in black wooden frames
In “Seven Rooms and a Garden: Rashid Johnson and The Moderna Museet Collection”, the work of American artist and filmmaker Rashid Johnson is in conversation, confrontation, and sometimes collusion with the collection of Moderna Museet. Each room in the exhibition (and the garden) stages an encounter based on the personal, political, and art historical relationships that Johnson holds in his practice.
BLACK AND BLUE
As artists such as Soufiane Ababri, Snežana Vučetić Bohm, and Melissa Shook (on view in this gallery) demonstrate, a self-portrait is an act of revealing the world through the eyes of one person – filled with desire, love, play, grandeur, violence, and ambiguity. Cuban-American artist Felix Gonzalez-Torres’s “Untitled” crowns this room with a portrait in the form of words and dates. He joins historical events and more enigmatic personal landmarks, questioning what, ultimately, makes up a person’s biography. The work has continued to change since its first manifestation in 1989. Even after the artist’s death in 1996, new events and dates have been added by the owner or lender each time it is installed to keep the work relevant and dynamic. For the occasion of Seven Rooms and a Garden, Rashid created a new manifestation of “Untitled”, adding words and years relevant to his life.
Artists
Rashid Johnson — through Soufiane Ababri, Etel Adnan, Karel Appel, Louis Armstrong, Kevin Beasley, Lee Bontecou, Snežana Vučetić Bohm, Louise Bourgeois, Tony Cokes, Lena Cronqvist, Jean Dubuffet, Cecilia Edefalk, Esra Ersen, Elliott Erwitt, Marcel Duchamp, Max Ernst, Jean Fautrier, Samuel Fosso, Sam Francis, Ellen Gallagher, Herbert Gentry, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Marcia Hafif, David Hammons, Every Ocean Hughes, Toshimitsu Imaï, Asger Jorn, Tadeusz Kantor, On Kawara, Willem de Kooning, Sol LeWitt, Klara Lidén, Lee Lozano, Henri Matisse, Ernest Mancoba, Santiago Mostyn, Barnett Newman, Maia Cruz Palileo, Niki de Saint Phalle, Jackson Pollock, Robert Rauschenberg, Melissa Shook, Cauleen Smith, Sun-Ra, Salman Toor, Cy Twombly, Ruben Valentim, Stanley Whitney and Andy Warhol.
Installation view, Black and Blue room from the exhibition ‘Seven Rooms and a Garden: Rashid Johnson and The Moderna Museet Collection’ 
Self Portraits 1991 and 1992