Chris Johanson
American (San Jose, California, 1968)The Sunlight of the Spirit Is the Warmth of Love
Johanson, a key figure among San Francisco's "Mission School" artists, combines social criticism with a certain optimism in his installations. His work often conceals sophisticated content beneath a seemingly naive, folk-art style of execution.
Made of wood scraps scavenged from the city's streets, the figures here stand on a brown table that is evocative of the earth. With their thoughts, roles, and names spilling down their sides, the figures seem to represent the relationships between people who compose a society — civilians, scientists, warmongers — and the various problems that exist within it, such as greed and war.
But Johanson mitigates the harshness of these observations by placing the figures before a gigantic, colorful explosion — a recurrent motif in his artworks that he describes as "just super-positive energy." Though Johanson has observed that "the world's a mess," his hope for change finds expression in this juxtaposition of earth and energy.
Keywords
sun, beams, rays, showers, colors, human figures, tables, sunbursts, platforms
From June 3, 2013, through early 2016, SFMOMA's building on Third Street in San Francisco will be temporarily closed for expansion construction. Selected artworks in our collection are included in a range of off-site exhibitions during this period. We regret that the remainder of the collection will not be available for study during this time.
In the meantime, we invite you to explore a wide selection of our collection online. Please note that the information presented online is subject to revision. Please contact us at collections@sfmoma.org to verify artwork details.
This resource is for educational use and its contents may not be reproduced without permission. Please review our Terms of Use for more information.
