Cheryl Johnson-Odim & Rashid Johnson: Heart-Turned-Inside-Out Poems

Rashid Johnson: A Poem for Deep Thinkers, on view at the MCA Chicago November 7, 2026 to April 25, 2027

A beautiful artist’s book documenting a mother and son’s intimate exchange across time and mediums, with text by Cheryl Johnson-Odim and art by Rashid Johnson.

This tenderly wrought artist’s book is a collaboration between American conceptual artist Rashid Johnson (born 1977) and his mother, historian Cheryl Johnson-Odim (born 1948). Bound as a single signature with silver-foiled text on the cover and multiple carefully selected papers, the book is based on an updated version of Johnson-Odim's poetry pamphlet Other Women Before Me, first published in 1985, the year her son Rashid turned eight years old. In 2022, Johnson presented the publication—along with titles by the likes of Amiri Baraka, Nikki Giovanni, Claudia Rankine and Sylvia Plath—in a reading area within his exhibition Sodade at Hauser & Wirth Menorca, where the image on the cover of this publication was also on view.

Johnson’s drawings are sourced from a 2020 sketchbook and bookend the poems, while the central pages of the book contain a personal and far-ranging conversation between mother and son. In a delightful touch, Johnson’s cover artwork folds out, transforming into a standalone poster.

Explore the full collection here.