The Worst Show of 2025

Travis Diehl | Spike Art Magazine | 31st December 2025

When Johnson’s show opened at the Guggenheim, a critic wondered whether his work was “activism or just décor”. Those doubts persist. Johnson is “just okay” as an artist – so how did he get this prestigious retrospective? Perhaps it’s because his “post-black” work is “citation heavy”, meaning that evaluation of his art is deflected into discussions of “biography and identity”. Palm trees have been hung in the museum’s central void, perhaps “a way to nervously fill that famous space, as if the art itself isn’t enough”.