Rindon Johnson, For example, collect the water just to see it pool there above your head. Don’t be a Fucking Hero!, 2021

2021

Medium

Rawhide, dirt, water, paracord

Status

In Gallery Collection

Collect24 Art ID

C24-156213

Rindon Johnson is invited by Adriano Pedrosa to position the work For example, collect the water just to see it pool there above your head. Don’t be a Fucking Hero!“ (2021-ongoing), suspended from the ceiling in the 60th Venice Biennale’s Arsenale as part of the main exhibition. Johnson’s ongoing rawhide based works name leather as a by-product and relic of industrial processing chains in order to name the intertwined systematic problematics of the construction of race, animal rights and the human constructed climate crisis. Acquired as a by-product of the meat industry, the artist treats the hanging hides with various agents such as polyurethane, bleach, minerals and colored pencils and exposes it to the weather for months which also draws traces on the skin. Johnson takes on the animal resource and, through its presentation, refers to the general subjugation, neglect and interchangeability of farm animals in our time. The actual act of skinning, a violent transgression of bodily boundaries, illustrates this form of objectification. Johnson raises questions in the work series, in which he addresses the subjugation, neglect and exchangeability of non-human actors in our contemporary times, while drawing parallels to identity politics and classist themes, as well as practices of racist exploitation.