"The Year in Art: Johanna Fateman Breaks Down the Biggest Hits (and Misses) of 2025"

It seems wrong to sugarcoat the year and unnecessary to belabor the bad news, from the tectonic upheavals and wanton destruction to the chef’s kiss insults from on high (i.e. Truth Social posts). But looking back through my photos and notes, I see that—for art—2025 was not bad at all. Stunned, 2016-style topical responses are long gone for the most part; the most meaningful work is characterized instead by a steely, head-down focus on being one’s self and doing one’s thing, undeterred. The (art) world may fall apart, but artists seem a psychic bulwark still. And while there were some let-downs, more memorable were the big moves and great shows. There was even some good news.

Salman Toor, “Wish Maker” (Luhring Augustine)

The Pakistani-American painter’s new work has progressed from tighter, more narrative work that casts queer immigrant characters, like himself, in contemporary scenes—in apartments and bars or on the street, bathed in absinthe light, in a style equal parts Rococo and Van Gogh—to something still recognizably his, but with a murkier beauty and depth. My favorites: Skinny Boy, 2025, whose slightly goofy and apparitional subject holds a phone up, FaceTiming maybe, or taking a selfie, his image reflected in a bathroom mirror; the hazy, lemon-sepia picture Mommy’s Room, 2024, which shows an interior from a curious, astral-projection perspective, similar to the vantage in the also figureless, vertical image of an Islamic cemetery—a place for the dead recalled through a child’s eye maybe, quietly gutting in another year of genocide.

Read full article at culturedmag.com