“What I really hoped to do with my work,” Rashid Johnson has said, “was to at least be able to define my relationship to race.” His method? Dissecting cultural notions of Blackness. Influenced by his reading of history and philosophy, Johnson has stormed the art scene with startling multimedia work. In the National Gallery’s glass-domed main entrance, he’s created a large pyramidal steel sculpture—airy cubes stacked with plants, books, sculptures, grow lights, and video monitors. It is meant to function like a brain, and Johnson has built neural pathways into it. This is his largest sculpture to date. —Elena Clavarino