Chris Johanson’s work offers a reverence for beauty yet challenges the viewer’s assumptions. I have been admiring his painting Untitled (with subject matter) #1, 2018, which features a stage, curtains pulled back to reveal the main show: the ocean. A reminder of what real drama is, and what should be at center stage: our beautiful ocean and this amazing planet. Yet this ocean is rising.
Lately I’ve also been thinking about his 2002 print The Main Concept of This Conceptual Art Is That Peace Is Square. The image captures my feelings of helplessness as we face the current pandemic and the many other environmental challenges. Johanson’s work offers a unique depiction of human nature, one that we all know exists but don’t always recognize.
In 2002, Johanson was included in the Whitney Biennial. For his Biennial installation, Chris chose the dark stairwell to do his brilliant and whimsical piece. I thought it an odd choice, because it was possible to miss his art altogether if you didn’t take the stairs. But then again, that was his point: take a different route. Johanson’s found objects and plywood installation spider-webbed the stairways with scenes of a tiny city parallel to the one outside. Little cutout figures going about their business did everyday things like looking at cellphones or hailing taxis. Above their head, little thought bubbles revealed their thoughts, like “Waste and things you don’t want to deal with can be found here and everywhere else.”
Chris Johason: THE MAIN CONCEPT OF THIS CONCEPTUAL ART IS THAT PEACE IS SQUARE, 2002
The installation captured Johanson’s facility at pointing out the collective mentality of our culture with truth and humor. Concurrently, Chris also had a show up at Deitch Projects called Now is Now. It was a mixed-media installation with two of my favorite pieces, best described by Ken Johnson’s review of the show in the New York Times:
“Inside a walk-in, clumsily cobbled wooden igloo, impenetrable darkness is relieved only by a small, glowing light bulb bearing the word ‘us’: humanity's tininess within the vastness of space. In the gallery's main room, a wheeled ship is driven round and round on a blue dome by a motorized pivot arm balanced by a cartoon money bag: the futility of materialism.”
Chris Johanson: MORE AWAITS ME THERE BUT RIGHT NOW I’M JUST GOING TO DEAL WITH HERE, 2002
How prophetic Chris’s work is. How perfectly his sentiments in 2002 apply to what is happening today: humanity is but a tiny cosmic speck in the face of COVID-19. And materialism offers no safe haven even for the most materialistic.
Watching our government fumble during a crisis of such magnitude brings me back to The Main Concept of This Conceptual Art Is That Peace Is Square. The print depicts all sorts of people, their legs slowly sinking into a giant pile of shit. Thought bubbles give their interpretations about how they ended up in that predicament:
“Oh no, all the shitty things I’ve been doing forever are going to take me out,” and
“Oh please God, I promise to change and to live a more love filled life,”
Above these helpless sinners is a square peace sign. When I asked Chris to explain this sign, he informed me that it stood for corporate America and all of the evil deeds that are done in the name of making money.
Chris is way ahead of us. He is an astute observer of human nature and our collective culture. He understands how we are all connected by our private but universal concerns.
Chris Johanson:I AM GLAD THAT I WENT TO CENTER, 2002
While working with Chris in the studio, I was constantly surprised and delighted by his remarks, insights, and illuminations. He has a delightful way of illustrating just how mired we are in self-concern. Another print he made in 2002 depicts the emergence of positive new-age psychology that was popular around then. In the print I Am Glad That I Went to Center, a lone man in a canoe heads out into an empty sea with no purpose or destination in sight. A thought bubble hovers over his head gleefully declaring how attending the “center” taught him about staying present and connected to the greater whole. His newfound positivism drives him forward to an unknown destination.
Johanson’s observations on the power of positive thinking make me smile. We should all remember to be present and part of the greater whole, especially in the face of the shelter-in-place isolation: the power of collective caring will get us across this vast unknown.
Chris Johanson: YOU SHOULD ALL KNOW SOMETHING BEFORE WE START ON THE SECOND HALF OF TODAY’S SESSION, 2002