A Look Back at the Art That Stayed With Us
Happy last Saturday of the year. We've spent the past few weeks rounding up the best of the best of 2025 — our favorite exhibitions and artworks, the books and films that moved us, memes that made us laugh and helped us process an increasingly dystopian reality. We also published our annual 20 Most Powerless list, a Hyperallergic tradition dating back to our founding days that parodies the market-driven media's arbitrary “most powerful” rankings. Our first-ever Powerless list, published in 2009 (!), included “assistant curators living off $27,000 salaries,” and we're afraid not much has changed ... This year, we shout out undocumented immigrants, artists who've been censored, and other unsung heroes of the art world who are fighting for rights and recognition in spite of every effort to stop them.
This week, we also remembered the artistic legends who left us this year. Artist Jaune Quick-to-See Smith, filmmaker David Lynch, architect Frank Gehry, and photographer Nona Faustine are among the giants who will remain with us in spirit and through their outsized imprint on the world. Each week, my colleague Associate Editor Lisa Yin Zhang’s In Memoriam column offers thoughtful tributes to artists we lost, part of Hyperallergic’s commitment to honoring legacies as we look ahead.
Because art never sleeps, you’ll also find below our usual mix of criticism, news, community columns, and opinions: an art worker's letter to incoming NYC mayor Zohran Mamdani, a Wes Anderson recreation of Joseph Cornell's studio in Paris, A View From the Easel, and lots more.
Finally, please take a few seconds to read this personal message from our Editor-in-Chief Hakim Bishara to learn a little more about Hyperallergic’s work and why it matters so much that you support us in this moment.
—Valentina Di Liscia, senior editor
Best of 2025
The 20 Most Powerless People in the Art World: 2025 Edition
Hyperallergic’s annual antidote to the lists of wealthy collectors, royals, and so-called tastemakers that pervade the art media.
10 Artworks That Spoke Truth to Power in 2025
From public murals to museum walls, artists mobilized their practices to call out injustices, expose wrongdoing, and advocate for a better world.
Art-World Giants We Lost in 2025
Legendary filmmaker David Lynch, sculptor of skylines Frank Gehry, powerhouse of Indigenous aesthetics Jaune Quick-to-See Smith, beloved curator Koyo Kouoh, and others we’ll carry with us.
Hyperallergic’s 20 Most Read Stories of 2025
From our coverage of the Louvre heist to the rising authoritarianism in the White House, this year has generated plenty of fodder for art discourse, memes, and more.
The Best Art Shows Around the World in 2025
Nan Goldin’s fearless photos, Noah Davis’s enchantments of ordinary life, Stan Douglas’s historical visions, and Yoko Ono’s musical mind were just some of our favorites.
The Best Art Films of 2025
A day in the life of Peter Hujar, a bungled museum heist, and Meredith Monk's six-decade career were the subjects of some of our favorite art films this year.
The Memes That Defined 2025
This year gave us the Hero With a Hero, the Coldplay couple, and the Somali diaspora's incredible flipping of the script on Trump's racism.
Our Favorite Art Books of 2025
This year, we read too many incredible books to count — here are a few that stuck with us, including tomes on Marsha P. Johnson, Mary Cassatt in Paris, and Ruth Asawa and mothering.
The 10 Best Paris Art Shows of 2025
Olga de Amaral’s sculptural tapestries, Otobong Nkanga’s multi-media oeuvre, Meriem Bennani’s footwear-as-soundscape, and more.
The 10 Best London Art Shows of 2025
It was a year of surprising pairings and standout exhibitions by artists including Kerry James Marshall, Jenny Saville, and Leigh Bowery
The Best New York City Exhibitions of 2025
Our staff and contributors look back on a year in art, from museum reopenings to shows that make and remake history.
The Virginia A. Groot Foundation’s Transformative Grants Empower Artists
This foundation offers annual grants to support sculptors and ceramic artists with funding, studio advancement, and opportunities for material exploration.
News
- Wes Anderson has recreated Joseph Cornell’s home studio in a new installation in Paris.
- Banksy's latest mural in a quiet London neighborhood depicts a pair of bundled-up children stargazing — possibly a reference to the more than 100,000 unhoused children in the nation's capital.
- The White House has renewed threats to the Smithsonian Institution, reiterating that federal funds are conditional on the organization turning over programming plans, including exhibition drafts.
Must-Reads
The Egalitarian Vision of Nativity Scenes
In all its artistic iterations across millennia, the nativity remains inherently political in its depiction of God choosing to enter the world in marginalized circumstances. | Ed Simon
The Messy Family Drama of Ancient Egyptian Gods
We walk you through the incestuous, murderous, and surprisingly relatable world of Egyptian deities at The Met. | Greta Rainbow
How a Nativity Scene Sent Europe Into a Tizzy
A controversial Brussels nativity scene begs the question: Should explicitly Christian imagery continue to be a part of Europe’s civic space, and if so, who has the authority to define it? Katherine Kelaidis
From Our Critics
Faith Ringgold's Story Quilts Get to the Heart of Being Human
Through her creative lives as author, illustrator, painter, quilter, sculptor, and activist, Ringgold spoke to the urgency and vulnerability of life. | Jasmine Weber
Medieval Psalms Were Not For Everyone
An exhibition prioritizes the expensive, silent object over the lived, functional experience of the believer. | Tamar Boyadjian
Opinion
British Museum Launches Farcical “Decolonizing” Loan Program
Long-term loans to former colonies are not restitution. They do not acknowledge historical wrongdoing, nor do they restore agency to source communities. Emiline Smith
Dear Zohran, Don’t Let Art Workers Down
Those of us in the cultural sector need you to enact a bold vision for the role of city government in fostering the arts and helping our communities thrive. | Sami Abu Shumays
Community
A View From the Easel
“My wife and I are both involved in education in the arts, so we see the beginnings of artistic growth.”
Required Reading
Reckoning with Harry Potter fandom as a trans person, Hallmark Christmas movie plot twists, a hard-hitting interview with Santa, and more.
