And I'd overheard a conversation amongst a couple of my professors

about an exhibition that was going to be opening at a gallery called Martha Schneider.

And the title of it was "New Artists, Old Processes,"

and I felt that I really fit in.

So I decided to take a portfolio to the gallery.

And I think at this time I was maybe 19. I was maybe a sophomore.

They weren't interested in looking at work of artists coming off the street.

But after a little bit of pleading, she looked at my portfolio,

and the next week she gave me a solo show [LAUGHS]

in that space.

From that solo show, a few works were bought by the Art Institute of Chicago and the Whitney Museum.

--[MALE INTERVIEWER, OFF CAMERA] So you're pretty ballsy?

[JOHNSON] Well I think it was naiveté more than balls.

I think it was just an idiot.

I mean if I had... I wouldn’t make that decision today.

I’m not going to go into a gallery... [LAUGHS]

I'm not going to go into MoMA with a portfolio

and say, "Hey, I'm here with my things. You should look at them."

["Rashid Johnson Keeps His Cool"]

--[JOHNSON] He enters.

[Hauser & Wirth, Upper East Side]

[Marc Payot, Gallerist]

--[PAYOT] Especially in your case, the black works,

--it's impossible to see

--it gets flat in photography.

--[JOHNSON] It's kind of a nice thing when people see the photographs

--and then they actually see the works--

--how visceral the actual textures are.

--But people like pictures.

[ALL LAUGH]

I was working with a lot of, kind of,

Nineteenth-Century photographic process materials.

And, while you're working with those materials,

quite a bit of what you're doing is actually, like,

physically applying the photo-sensitive chemistry to the paper.

So it got me very, kind of, interested in paper.

It got me very interested in materials, and how material was being applied,

and how, physically, I was participating with it;

which, I think, later on, leads me to melting black soap and wax, and pouring it.

So I think it was a very natural progression for me.

I was really interested in, kind of, taking ownership of a few different materials--

some things that I hadn't seen really employed in art objects

that I could, kind of, essentially take as my own.

When I was about 22, I started going to the Russian Turkish bath house all the time,

and I was just, kind of, sitting there and sweating,

and finding a way to kind of relax, because I'm kind of a tad high strung, and...

[LAUGHS]

So, it really became kind of like almost like a temple to me,

like almost a religious space.

And I've always wanted to find a material or something I could kind of use

to have a conversation about, like cleansing,

you know, like a psychological cleansing, as well as a physical cleansing.

[David Kordansky Gallery, Los Angeles]

Shea butter, for me...

when I was young, my mom would bring it back from West Africa,

and we'd have it in the house.

And over time, I starting thinking,

"We're, like, putting Africa on ourselves, right?"

Like, we're like essentially kind of coating ourselves with this African product.

I've always been interested in the domestic,

and around, kind of, highjacking, you know,

things that we're familiar with,

and, you know, essentially kind of occupying them,

or translating them through different filters.

[Venice Biennale, Italy]

A professor of mine used to say:

in the morning, you would get up, and before you left the house,

you'd look in the mirror, and you'd change something small about yourself,

and that's who you thought you were.

That's who your "now" character was.

You know, and then two minutes after you leave that mirror, that thing has changed.

[LAUGHS] You know?

And so, with the mirror works,

which become kind of these vehicles for deconstructing what has been reflected in them...

For me, it was interesting to make an art object

that you can then find your "now" space again, you know,

while you actually participate with the object.

You get to be that "now" character.

My blackness--or the issues around that--

have a strong effect on how my work is born

and around the conversation that inevitably will happen,

but I don't think that it's really the sum of all what my work is.

I think, formally, I'm trying to approach art making

in a way that is a part of the bigger history of art.

New York is a beast, you know?

It's a difficult place to come to as an artist.

There's not a whole lot of hand-holding.

You know, I had several shitty studios, and... [LAUGHS]

You know, but I think one thing was consistent--

that I knew that I wanted to continue to work,

and to see how far I could push the work.

It's a place I think you come to when you decide that you really want to be an artist,

and that you will do whatever is necessary

to allow the work to get the attention that you think it deserves.

--[JOHNSON] Can I bum a cigarette off anyone?

--[MAN] Congrats, man.

--[JOHNSON] Thank you.

They say, I think, New York shakes,

and if you’re not grounded in it, [LAUGHS]

you know you might fall off this motherfucker. [LAUGHS]

--[MALE INTERVIEWER, OFF CAMERA] Have you gotten close?

I've been okay.

I've been alright, you know?