"I knew that there was something bubbling inside me that asked more questions and provided more contradictions."
Rashid Johnson, 2013
The once prosaic timber floor of Rashid Johnson’s Born by the River, 2011 has been scorched and wounded; using a hot iron to brand the floor with a myriad of simple geometric forms, Johnson chars the surface in hieroglyphics unknown to this world. Symbols—circular, triangular, hollow and solid –are seared into the floor boards in a constellation of wounds that form a brilliant heaven of semiotics. Through his vigorous approach, the present lot emerges as a magnificent cross between cultural investigation and artistic process. The symbols are first marked through the application of black soap. Once outlined, the areas are re-branded into the surface with a hot iron, leaving a permanent scar on its skin. In explaining the series, Johnson reveals “fueled by my interest in abstraction and mark-making as well as my interest in the constructed object….. How do these things become signifiers? What are these things when they no longer function in the way they were originally intended to function?” (Rashid Johnson in C. Stackhouse, “Rashid Johnson,” Art in America Magazine, April 4, 2012)
Through the use of ordinary floor boards, we are immediately drawn to the familiarity of the surface, grooves, and smell of oak flooring from homes of our past. Typical of aged houses, the floors endure the wear of the generations of residents whose lives unravel upon them. Johnson’s artistic practice of “reuse and improvisation” is illustrated perfectly in Born by the River in its combination of re-used materials and “mark-making.” In explaining this body of work, Johnson reveals “Now I deal with the more formal concerns of abstraction, even in works like the branded wood pieces, which also relate to critical and conceptual notions. Form is where I really started as an artist, before my work became involved with other concerns. I've gone back to issues around how you make decisions as an artist, as well as the materials and tools that you use to make those decisions.” (Rashid Johnson in C. Stackhouse, “Rashid Johnson,” Art in America Magazine, April 4, 2012)
