Rindon Johnson

Rindon Johnson (born 1990, California) is an American artist, poet and writer. Johnson has based his work on language and its slippery nature. He uses animal hides, animation, virtual reality, wood and vaseline to consider capital accumulation and the systemic violences that maintain it. Johnson has exhibited his sculptures and videos internationally in Europe, the United States, and Australia, and is a published author. As of 2026, Johnson is a faculty member and associate chair of painting at the Milton Avery Graduate School of the Arts at Bard College. in San Francisco, CA in 1990. He is an alumnus of the Department of Photography and Imaging (DPI) in the NYU Tisch School of the Arts and received his MFA from Bard College.

Works

Johnson is the author of several books including The Law of Large Numbers, published by SculptureCenter, Chisenhale Gallery and Inpatient Press in 2021, the chapbook, No One Sleeps Better Than White People, published by Inpatient Press, and the virtual reality e-book, Meet in the Corner. In 2017, Johnson collaborated with multidisciplinary artist Ser Serpas on Shade the King, a book of stream-of-consciousness-inspired poems by Johnson and abstract drawings by Serpas, published by Capricious.

Rindon Johnson participated in the 60th International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia curated by Adriano Pedrosa. In 2024, Johnson presented his largest solo exhibition to date, Best Synthetic Answer, at the Rockbund Art Museum in Shanghai, China. His work has been shown internationally, including solo presentations at Albertinum, Dresden (2022), SculptureCenter in New York (2021), and the Julia Stoschek Collection in Düsseldorf (2019).

Johnson has written for a number of online and print art publications such as The Brooklyn Rail, Cultured Magazine, Hyperallergic, and Artforum and has lectured on art and theory at Bruce High Quality Foundation University, UdK Berlin and UCLA.

Exhibitions Solo exhibitions Find Spot, Kunsthall Bergen, Bergen, Norway, 2025 Seven Whale Road, Cibrián, San Sebastián, Spain, 2025 Why tell a dead man the future, CC Strombeek, Brussels, Belgium, 2025 Best Synthetic Answer, Rockbund Museum - Shanghai, China, 2024 Five, Max Goelitz, Berlin, Germany, 2023-24 Andromache Freya Rocket Suki Nomad Pete Kimmy Z River Chloe Ali Robert Maple Tigger Theodosia Martha Nate, COMA Gallery, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, 2023 The Bells Pursuing One Another, Albertinum, Dresden, Germany, 2022 Cuvier, Francois Ghebaly, New York, New York, New York, USA, 2022 Law of Large Numbers: Our Bodies, SculptureCenter, Long Island City, New York, USA, 2021 Law of Large Numbers: Our Selves, Chisenhale Gallery, London, United Kingdom, 2021 The Valley of the Moon, Francois Ghebaly, Los Angeles, California, USA, 2021 Circumscribe, Julia Stoschek Collection, Düsseldorf, Germany, 2019 Well, Covered, AALA Gallery, Los Angeles, California, USA, 2018 A Din, A Hand, Beacon Sacramento, Sacramento, California, USA, 2017 Existential Hangover, The Guest Room IRL at The Museum of Human Achievement, Austin, Texas, USA, 2017

Selected Collaborative Exhibitions Lifes, The Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, California, USA, 2022 Unlock the Gates! Span the Mouth!, Sophie Tappenier, Vienna, Austria, 2022 This End The Sun, New Museum, New York, New York, USA, 2021 A Cultivated Life, King’s Leap, Brooklyn, New York, USA, 2018 Or Else the Women Play the Game, Stellar Projects, New York, New York, USA, 2018

Selected group exhibitions Hard Art, MoMA PS1, New York, New York, USA, 2026 Close to the Clouds: Encountering Digital Diasporas, Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts, Omaha, Nebraska, USA, 2026 eva hesse, lukas heerich, rindon johnson, max goelitz, Munich, Germany, 2026 Emotional Terrains of Change, Simian, Copenhagen, Denmark, 2025 Accumulation – On Collecting, Growth and Excess, Second Sequence, Migros Museum für Gegenwartskunst, Zürich, Switzerland, 2025 Stranieri Ovunque / Foreigners Everywhere, La Biennale di Venezia, Venice, Italy, 2024 Poetics of Encryption, KW Institute of Contemporary Art, Berlin, Germany, 2024 Some of It Falls from the Belt and Lands on the Walkway Beside the Conveyor, Vleeshal, Middelburg, Netherlands, 2022 Quiet as it's Kept, Whitney Biennial, Whitney Museum, New York, New York, USA, 2022 Get Rid of Yourself, Sophie Tappeiner, Vienna, Austria, 2020 Materia Medica, Francois Ghebaly Gallery, Los Angeles, USA, 2020 Searching the Sky for Rain, SculptureCenter, New York, New York, USA, 2019 Radical Reading Room, The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, New York, USA, 2019 Nobody Promised You Tomorrow, Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, New York, USA, 2019 TOUCHING FROM A DISTANCE, Literaturhaus, Berlin, Germany, 2018 States of Play: Roleplaying Reality, FACT, Liverpool, United Kingdom, 2018 New Black Portraitures, curated by Aria Dean, Rhizome, Online, 2017 NGV Triennial, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Australia, 2017 The Unframed World, HeK (Haus der elektronischen Künste), Basel, Switzerland, 2017