Rindon Johnson’s artistic practice is rooted in exploring the complexities of identity and the human experience through language and objects. In Coeval Proposition #1: Tear down so as to make flat with the Ground or The *Trans America Building DISMANTLE EVERYTHING (2021), Johnson addresses both the poetic play on words as well as the ineptitude of words to capture the entirety of an experience. Essentially a pun, he crafted the form of the Transamerica Pyramid – a forty-eight-storey modernist skyscraper in downtown San Francisco – out of reclaimed redwood, addressing his own experience as a trans man in America. The pyramid form has become synonymous with the artist’s hometown skyline, reflecting the way language, place of origin, and emigration collectively shape one’s identity. Identity is further complicated by its incompleteness, like an empty skin. Works like The stage is no place for a riot (2019 - ongoing) utilise cowhide in a variety of ways – repurposed in windows, used as a water-catcher, and hung as flags. This body of work serves as a reminder of the way in which identity can be equipped and shed, turning identity into a symbolic garment or a material tool.
This is the first time the work of Rindon Johnson is presented at Biennale Arte.
—William Hernandez Luege
