This month, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation appointed the multidisciplinary American artist Rashid Johnson to its board of trustees. The announcement marks the first time in nearly five decades that an artist has been on the board, following the late baroness and abstract artist Hilla von Rebay, who was the founding director and curator of the museum in the 1930s.
In a joint statement released to the press, William L. Mack, the chairman of the foundation, and Jennifer Blei Stockman, the president of the foundation, say that Johnson is “dynamic and accomplished practitioner whose work is represented in the Guggenheim collection, [and] we look forward to engaging with Rashid in this new leadership role.”
Johnson is known for his conceptual and socio-political paintings, sculptures, photographs, performances and videos. In 2015, the artist was part of an exhibition titled Storylines: Contemporary Art at the Guggenheim where he showed several works centred on race and identity. The show was assembled from more than 100 works in the museum’s collection with the aim to explore the ways that contemporary artists engage with narrative.
