Public Deferral 2018-2021
video projections, wood, aluminum 7 x 10 feet     My work uses video, photography, found and stolen objects, installation and architectural intervention to engage with subjects and histories pushed to the margins of urban life. Often these subjects are entangled in processes of erasure brought on by urban development and ongoing legacies of systemic racism. By exploring the symbolic and phenomenological aspects of precarious architectures, urban infrastructures, public sculptures, and public amenities, my work resurfaces alternative forms of perception and representation inside the urban commons.  With attention to the quotidian, I’m invested in how the pedestrian perspective can be used as a space for both study and resistance against the ongoing privatization and policing of urban space.     David Johnson (b. 1993, New York, NY) lives and works in New York. He received a BFA from The Cooper Union in 2015, a MFA from The University of Pennsylvania in 2020 and will be a participant of the Whitney Independent Study Program in 2021. Recent exhibitions include: Pilot + Projects, Philadelphia, PA; Philomatheon Gallery, Philadelphia, PA; The Arnold and Sheila Aronson Galleries, New School, New York, NY; Hosting Projects, New York, NY; La Mama Galleria, New York, NY