The World's Best Art in 2025
Also: A majority of artists struggle with debt, LACMA workers vote overwhelmingly for a union, and a word about the hilarity of evil.
Move over, Smithsonian. The wall labels everyone’s talking about in DC this week are at the White House, where Trump installed derisive plaques about his Democratic predecessors Joe Biden and Barack Obama. They're as grotesque as you might expect, riddled with all-caps smears and untruths.
Oh man, someone should really write a book about the Hilarity of Evil™. But who's fighting against this degradation of culture? Who's out there putting themselves and careers on the line? Not many, I'm afraid.
But you have us, and we do it together with you. To help us sustain our work as the only major art publication not owned by a billionaire or corporation, please join as a paid member. It's only a few dollars a month, but it goes a long way in keeping us strong and independent. Enjoy today's stories and have a great Friday.
—Hakim Bishara, editor-in-chief
The Best Art Shows Around the World in 2025
Nan Goldin’s fearless Berlin retrospective, a remapping of interwar Paris in Singapore, Noah Davis’s visions of Black life, and a meditation on monuments in LA were just some of our favorites around the world this year.
Craft in America returns to PBS for a new season with “EAST” and “WEST.” The latest episodes of the docuseries explore craft across the US, beginning with stories of artists in the Eastern and Western United States.
News
- A whopping 96% of staff at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art voted in favor of a union, calling for higher pay and “increased transparency.”
- A survey among more than 1,000 artists, commissioned by our very own Paddy Johnson, found that 56% of participants are mired in debt. What's worse, this number climbs to 59% for those with gallery representation and museum shows under their belt.
LSU School of Art Offers Highest MFA Stipends in the Southern US
With assistantships funded at $23,000, full tuition waivers, and generous health insurance, Louisiana State University helps students lay the groundwork for a successful lifelong art practice.
Member Comment
Brian Eno on Sarah Rose Sharp's "Annie Leibovitz Shoots Fifty Shades of Anne Hathaway":
Indigenous glass art takes center stage at the National Museum of the American Indian: Clearly Indigenous: Native Visions Reimagined in Glass celebrates culture, craft, and storytelling. Now on view in New York City.
Community
Art Movements
A 27-foot Buddha sculpture is coming to the High Line in New York, replacing Iván Argote’s beloved oversized pigeon. Plus, Upstate Art Weekend is expanding and other industry news.
A View from the Easel
Jess Sossi Romano welcomes us into her home studio in Brooklyn, New York. "I am usually in my studio by 10am with a drink, a snack, and a speaker," she writes. Qiurui Du boasts a neat workspace in Shanghai, China. "Visitors are often shocked by how clean my studio is," he reports.
Required Reading
Did you know about the Icelandic tradition of gifting books during Christmas? Also: Joan Mitchell’s love of literature, garments with passports, and behind the scenes of Vanity Fair's controversial photoshoot of Trump's inner circle.
From the Archive
Christmas Cheer from a Lean Year: The 1950 Holiday Cards of Langston Hughes
The Beinecke Library at Yale University is exhibiting Hughes's typewritten 1950 Christmas postcards, along with holiday cards he received from friends.
