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Collage of five diverse artworks from the Hammer Museum Collections side by side. From left to right: 1) Contemporary painting of two embracing figures with surreal elements. 2) Post-impressionist style painting of trees with vibrant blues and greens. 3) Black and white illustration of a face with intricate patterns. 4) Japanese woodblock print style image of a figure in a checkered robe. 5) Photograph of a couple dancing, the woman in a black dress and the man in white

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Barry Johnston

Back to Made in L.A. 2014
Barry Johnston: Final Party
8/13/2014---Barry Johnston’s project envisions art as an articulation of fleeting thresholds, provisional gateways from one state of being into another, exits from the materiality of art into a space of play and intensity. His ecstatic and propagandistic performances embody this same spirit of apocalyptic transformation through the material and ideological concept of his “Final Party”—a phrase that appears in titles, across banners, and as the name of his KCHUNG radio program. Johnston asserts the creative possibilities of annihilation—the anarchic dream of wiping the slate clean. It upholds the potential for a pause, a space where the aggregation of bodies works against the spirit of commodity fetishism and the pleasure of a “final” party might be the best form of resistance.

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About the Artist

Born 1980 in Alton, Illinois

Barry Johnston’s sculpture, poetry, and performance are at times simultaneously destructive and optimistic. Drawing from a wealth of influences from Jean Genet to the postminimalist sculptor Ree Morton, Johnston’s work asserts the creative possibilities of destruction—the anarchic dream of wiping the slate clean.

In his installation Margin Rising (2013), Johnston positions an empty concrete bookshelf whose surface appears to have been licked by flames literally and metaphorically as a site of transformation. The bookshelf seems to be charred by the ideas within, open and ready to accept more. Johnston’s performances envision this same destructive, anarchic transition through a “Final Party.” The phrase appears in titles, across banners, and as the name of Johnston’s KCHUNG radio program, and is reflected in the raucous “chorus after chorus of propagandistic slogans” of his performances. Johnston’s work and performances sees social change through the kind of rough energy of punk culture, but if the spirit of punk shows skepticism toward art’s ability to transcend the social, political, and economic conditions of late capitalism, Johnston’s work is decisively more optimistic.