Rashid Johnson | LIZWORKS

LIZWORKS has collaborated with the celebrated American artist Rashid Johnson to create a collection of jewelry that draws upon his distinctive visual language. Images from Johnson’s ANXIOUS MEN series have been translated into gold and titanium cuffs, signet rings, ring bands, dog tag necklaces and pendants, all created in limited-editions.

“Since the beginning of LIZWORKS, I have been largely absorbed by female energy. Something that is particularly evident in recent LIZWORKS collaborations with artists like Cindy Sherman, Wangechi Mutu and Shirin Neshat,” says LIZWORKS founder Liz Swig. “I felt it was time to explore male energy, to take it into the realm of jewelry with all the tension and complexity that would entail. I was drawn to the enormity of Rashid’s vision, the urgency and raw honesty of this particular body of work—and the challenge of containing that power in a small object you could hold in your hand or wear next to your skin. During the process, we found ourselves in the midst of a global pandemic and unprecedented protest for social justice. In this context, in this world, the work becomes even more powerful, more profound—braver still in its anxiety and its vulnerability. It dares us to stay present and engaged.”

Artist’s Statement

We started this collaboration at the end of last year, pre-Covid and pre-the social justice moment that we are now living in. But a lot of the concerns that motivate this movement, the relationship people of color have with the police and structures of systemic racism, have always been present in my thinking and in my work. Those have been motivating factors in the exploration of topics closer to my personal experience.

This work is about anxiety and the negotiation with fear, it’s an interrogation of those things and an awareness of their impact. I started making this body of work with cathartic intentions, to push back against the feelings that were at times really handicapping me, to illustrate those feelings and to give myself an action step to consider and unpack why I was feeling that way. My anxiety travels with me. Translating this work into a wearable gives it its own mobility—an antidote to those feelings wherever I am.

There is a long history of artists using jewelry and wearables to explore and spread our ideas. And there is a rich history in the black community and in my family of folks wearing one’s wealth. I don’t think of jewelry as feminine at all. I grew up with Marvin Gaye and Isaac Hayes wearing jewelry. I also grew up a child of hip hop. Rakim of Eric B and Rakim, Biggie—a lot of my heroes wore jewelry. There is a great interview on David Letterman with Mr. T where Letterman jokingly asks him why he wears so much jewelry. Mr. T replies that his ancestors were brought here with chains around their necks and their wrists and he wears them now but he has turned them into gold which makes people uncomfortable. He tells Letterman that people are constantly asking him if the chains get heavy and yet no one asked his ancestors that question.

About LIZWORKS/Liz Swig

Founded in 2014 by Liz Swig, LIZWORKS collaborates with celebrated contemporary artists to create limited-edition pieces that reflect the moment and push the boundary between jewelry and art.

Past LIZWORKS projects have included CHARMED, which envisioned the traditional charm bracelet as both a contemporary heirloom and a wearable work of art, bringing seven incredible women artists including Sherman, Barbara Kruger, Shirin Nishat, and Wangechi Mutu, into an intimate and powerful dialogue. LIZWORKS also commissioned a series of signed, limited-edition eyewear (Hiroshi Sugimoto; Vik Muniz) that enabled viewers to literally see the world through the eyes of the artist. And in 2017, LIZWORKS presented TFO, a revolutionary, wholly immersive oatmeal experience in collaboration with design luminaries Humberto and Fernando Campana. The project produced two limited edition bowls—one in cast bronze and the other in terracotta.

“To me, the distinction between jewelry and art is immaterial,” says LIZWORKS founder Liz Swig. “As long as the pieces provoke and delight, I know I am doing something right.”

A renowned patron, collector, and a formidable fundraiser, Liz Swig has served in leadership roles on the Boards of Directors of several prestigious cultural institutions, including the Whitney Museum of American Art, The Film Society of Lincoln Center, Creative Time, and the American Friends of the Israel Museum. She is widely recognized for the range of unforgettable events she has orchestrated on those organizations’ behalf, often with record breaking results. For the past few years, she has channeled her passion, her wit, her instinct for making connections and her inimitable ability to get things done into LIZWORKS.

About Rashid Johnson

Born in Chicago in 1977, Rashid Johnson is among an influential cadre of contemporary American artists whose work employs a wide range of media to explore themes of art history, individual and shared cultural identities, personal narratives, literature, philosophy, materiality, and critical history. After studying in the photography department of the Art Institute of Chicago, Johnson’s practice quickly expanded to embrace a wide range of media – including sculpture, painting, drawing, filmmaking, and installation – yielding a complex multidisciplinary practice that incorporates diverse materials rich with symbolism and personal history.

Johnson’s work is known for its narrative embedding of a pointed range of everyday materials and objects, often associated with his childhood and frequently referencing collective aspects of African American intellectual history and cultural identity. To date, Johnson has incorporated elements / materials / items as diverse as CB radios, shea butter, literature, record covers, gilded rocks, black soap and tropical plants. Many of Johnson’s works convey rhythms of the occult and mystic: evoking his desire to transform and expand each included object’s field of association in the process of reception.

RASHID JOHNSON
Gold Ring Band from Anxious Men
15mm

RASHID JOHNSON
Titanium Military Tag from Anxious Men
26 x 46 mm

RASHID JOHNSON
Titanium Signet Ring from Anxious Men
24 x 24 mm