NARRATOR:
Chris Johanson worked in the Mission in the 1990s, at the height of the dot-com boom. He witnessed firsthand the effects of wealth on the Mission and other working-class neighborhoods in the city. Johanson’s work was a conscious departure from the waste and consumption of the boom years—wood scraps, recycled paint, and other scavenged materials are familiar elements of his paintings and installation pieces. It led one critic to describe Johanson’s work as “One massive reclamation project.”
CHRIS JOHANSON:
I don’t think I’m a political artist, really, but politics are inseparable. But I will say that I’m a political artist, just to be not cool. So let’s say, “Yeah, I’m totally a political artist.” And I sell drawings for really cheap, because I don’t want to just be priced for millionaires, because I don’t think that millionaires are that interesting, really. You know?
But I definitely don’t think that the artist is sacred, and I don’t think that a particular piece of art is sacred at all. But I think, like, creativity is sacred.
NARRATOR:
Often, Johanson depicts the energy of city life, as well as the spiritual connections between people. Curator Janet Bishop:
JANET BISHOP:
I think that Chris is really energized by human beings, both as individuals and as interconnected members of society. The painting that we’re looking at that has all of these figures connected to this same black shape as though they all have something similar on their minds, and yet they’re not engaged with each other physically, they’re really looking past each other—outside the borders of the piece.