Best 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.

Art and images from the most read stories of 2025

As this year comes to a close and we gear up for an exciting 2026, let’s take a moment to reflect on Hyperallergic’s 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. We’re proud of our coverage of the art world this year and the fact that we’ve published so many stories that have resonated with you.

This list is only a sample of the work Hyperallergic publishes daily. Over the past year alone, we published almost 2,000 stories by hundreds of authors, and reached millions of readers in our email newsletters and on the web.

None of this would have been possible without the Hyperallergic members who support our work. This year has once again been challenging, but our membership program makes this work possible give us the confidence to keep pushing forward into 2026.

If you are not already a member, please consider supporting our independent reporting and criticism in 2026 by joining today.

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Hyperallergic’s 20 Most Read Stories of 2025

(in descending order by total views)

1. What I Wish I Had Known About Germany Earlier by Ai Weiwei
   A German newspaper commissioned an article from me but then refused to publish it.
2. When Artists Are Too Old to Be “Emerging” by Damien Davis
   If the art world is serious about equity, it has to stop equating emergence with youth and start building structures that reflect the multiplicity of artistic timelines.
3. Monuments Were Never Meant to Last Forever by Nanase Shirokawa
   Art historian Cat Dawson’s new book invites us to contemplate a world populated by subversive monuments — or one that does away with them altogether.
4. Reclaiming a Whitewashed History of the Great Depression by Monica Uszerowicz
   A new exhibition focuses on Black Southerners documented by photographers like Walker Evans, Dorothea Lange, and Ben Shahn.
5. The True Story of a Rare Eva Hesse Painting Found at a Goodwill Auction by Laurie Gwen Shapiro
   "Landscape Forms," a 1959 artwork whose whereabouts were unknown for decades, is headed to Christie’s after it was spotted online by a sharp-eyed appraiser.
6. The Museum Donors Accused of Sucking California Dry by Dan Schindel
   Pistachio Wars argues that billionaires Lynda and Stewart Resnick are harming California’s environment as they artwash their damage.
7. Can Steve Martin Help Bring Visitors to the Frick Collection? by Isa Farfan
   The art collector and Pink Panther actor prances around the museum’s freshly renovated Gilded Age mansion in a new video.
8. People Really Hate the Philadelphia Art Museum Rebrand by Maya Pontone
   The PMA is now PhAM, with a new logo that critics say evokes a football club, athleisure, or “some kind of Cold War monstrosity.”
9. Digital commentators wasted no time making Pink Panther jokes and digs at President Macron as the brazen robbery gets absorbed into the online discourse.

• Best of 2025