here are 6 of the worst art works we saw all year

Artnet News published a year-end roundup of the worst artworks of 2023, as selected by its writers and editors. The list includes Meta's AI-art chatbot experiments on Instagram, which cloned celebrity likenesses into cringe-worthy avatars like Snoop Dogg's 'The Dungeon Master' and Kendall Jenner's 'Billie,' alongside Refik Anadol's 'Unsupervised' at MoMA, criticized as shallow tech spectacle. Other entries include a poorly received Picasso-themed exhibition and additional works deemed ill-conceived or badly executed.

Comment | Catherine Opie shows us that in dark times, looking for joy can be radical

The artist Catherine Opie is currently the subject of a major three-decade portrait survey, 'To Be Seen', at the National Portrait Gallery in London. The exhibition highlights Opie’s career-long commitment to representing the LGBTQ+ community, specifically the leather dyke scene in Los Angeles, through a lens that balances defiance with playfulness. Even her most provocative works, such as the 1993 self-portrait featuring a domestic scene carved into her back, are revealed to contain elements of humor and historical allusion that counter the despair of the AIDS crisis and personal heartbreak.

robert longo pace gallery review

Artist Robert Longo presents a new exhibition at Pace Gallery, featuring his signature large-scale, hyperrealistic drawings that address themes of brutality, conflict, and protest. The show is a revised version of a 2023 exhibition at the Milwaukee Art Museum, with works based on media images of events such as the war in Ukraine, Black Lives Matter protests, and migrant crises. The article critically examines several pieces, including "Untitled (Ferguson Police, August 13, 2014)" and "Untitled (Refugees at Mediterranean Sea, Sub-Saharan Migrants, July 25, 2017)," arguing that Longo's manipulations of source photographs result in melodramatic and dishonest representations.

lorna simpson met museum painting survey review

Lorna Simpson's paintings are the subject of a new survey exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, titled "Source Notes," on view through November 2. The show features over 20 paintings created between 2014 and 2024, marking the first exhibition to survey Simpson's output in this medium. Curated by Lauren Rosati, the exhibition aims to provide an overview of her painterly practice while connecting it to her collage work, with two vitrines displaying her collages to illustrate the fluidity between the two practices. Simpson, best known for her photography from the 1980s, debuted her paintings at the 2015 Venice Biennale organized by the late curator Okwui Enwezor.

Wilhelm Sasnal review – his wild juxtapositions are almost obscene

Polish artist Wilhelm Sasnal's new exhibition at Sadie Coles HQ in London presents a disorienting array of paintings. The works juxtapose disparate and often disturbing images, including a grotesque depiction of the Oval Office, portraits of his family, album art for the industrial band Throbbing Gristle, and a forest scene linked to the Holocaust, creating a deliberate sense of fragmentation and broken connections.

adrien brody art eden gallery

Actor Adrien Brody debuted a new exhibition titled "Made in America" at Eden Gallery in New York, featuring paintings that incorporate pop culture icons like Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, and Marilyn Monroe alongside collage elements and text. The show has garnered significant media attention, including a profile in the New York Times and praise from Cultured and Interview magazine, partly fueled by the sale of one of Brody's paintings for $425,000 at the amfAR Cannes Gala. However, the art press, including Artnet News, has been highly critical, with ARTnews reviewer Alex Greenberger describing the works as ugly, derivative, and lacking nuance.

independent picks

The article reviews the Independent art fair, highlighting its curated approach that results in a visually cohesive and easeful experience compared to other fairs. It notes the prevalence of neo-bucolic landscapes and animal paintings by artists like Sameen Agha, Tim Braden, and Lisa Sanditz, as well as delicate abstractions and small ceramic works. Standout pieces include Pope.L's provocative paint-scribbled underwear at Mitchell-Innes and Nash, Rosa Barba's kinetic painting at Vistamare, Ibrahim El-Salahi's silkscreen painting at Vigo Gallery, and works by emerging artists such as Constanza Camila Kramer Garfias and Ada Friedman at Kendra Jayne Patrick Gallery.

The Robots Were Never the Problem

The New Museum has reopened with 'New Humans: Memories of the Future,' a massive survey featuring over 150 contributors including Hito Steyerl, Precious Okoyomon, and H.R. Giger. Spanning 13 sections across the museum's new 5,500 square-meter extension, the exhibition traces the intersection of art, technology, and the human body from the early 20th century to the present. It juxtaposes interwar European works, such as Hannah Höch’s photomontages and Bauhaus ballets, with contemporary installations like Simon Denny’s sculpture of an Amazon worker's cage.

worst artworks we saw around the world in 2022

Artnet News editors compiled a list of the worst artworks they encountered in 2022, including a chaotic performance by Poncili Creación at NADA Miami, an overproduced Danish Pavilion installation by Uffe Isolotto at the Venice Biennale, and a Paul Cézanne painting at the Barnes Foundation that disappointed a critic. The article offers subjective, critical takes on these works, describing the NADA performance as bizarre and jolting, the Danish pavilion as graphic and lacking a powerful message, and the Cézanne as a disappointment within an otherwise memorable museum visit.

What ‘Costume Art’ Gets Wrong About the Body

The Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute spring exhibition, featuring nearly 400 objects, pairs garments and ensembles with Western figurative artworks from the museum's permanent collection in dyadic, associative displays. The show eschews traditional art-historical timelines and context in favor of visual and thematic parallels—comparing, for example, Rudi Gernreich's Pubikini with an Egyptian statuette, or Ying Gao's sound-responsive dress with a David Hockney drawing. The exhibition is sponsored by Jeff and Lauren Sánchez Bezos.

10 Art Books for Your Spring Reading List

Hyperallergic has published a curated list of ten art books recommended for spring reading. The selection emphasizes historical retellings through an artistic lens, featuring works such as a memoir by activist-artist Susan Simensky Bietila, a chronicle of the Jewish Bund by Molly Crabapple, and the first major catalog on artist Theresa Hak Kyung Cha in 25 years. The list also includes exhibition catalogs like "Chicano Camera Culture" and a monograph on painter Ewa Juszkiewicz.

Konrad Mägi review – these bland, blobby paintings are expressionism without expression

A new exhibition of early 20th-century Estonian painter Konrad Mägi at Dulwich Picture Gallery has received a scathing critical review. The reviewer finds Mägi's colorful, modernist-influenced landscapes and portraits to be bland, derivative, and devoid of the emotional depth or urgency found in the great modernists or the gallery's own Old Master collection.

The Big Review | Venice Biennale 2026: In Minor Keys ★★★½

The Venice Biennale 2026, titled "In Minor Keys," was curated posthumously following the death of artistic director Koyo Kouoh in May 2025. A team of five curators and advisors—Gabe Beckhurst Feijoo, Marie Hélène Pereira, Rasha Salti, Siddhartha Mitter, and Rory Tsapayi—executed her vision across the Giardini and Arsenale venues. The exhibition features 110 artists, with a strong emphasis on new commissions, and is structured around themes of procession, resistance, and joy. Key works include Big Chief Demond Melancon's "Amistad Takeover" (2026), Nick Cave's "Amalgam (Origin)" (2025), and Otobong Nkanga's rewilded columns at the Central Pavilion.

Hulda Guzmán review – lizards and ghosts gather for an art freakout in the rainforest

Hulda Guzmán's first institutional exhibition in Europe, "Please Awake – Asked Nature Kindly," is on view at Turner Contemporary in Margate, UK. The show features the Dominican artist's ultra-colorful, psychedelic jungle paintings that blend art historical references—from Japanese ukiyo-e prints to pointillism and symbolism—with personal mythology, demons, spirits, and lush tropical landscapes. The works are drawn from her life in the Dominican rainforest, where she lives and works in a studio built by her architect father.

Are We Too Reverent of Marcel Duchamp?

The Museum of Modern Art has launched a major retrospective of Marcel Duchamp, co-organized with the Philadelphia Museum of Art. The exhibition tracks the artist's evolution from his early Cubist experiments and the scandal of 'Nude Descending a Staircase' to his radical invention of the readymade, exemplified by the infamous urinal, 'Fountain'. The show presents a comprehensive look at 'The Duch' through a reverential, church-like atmosphere, concluding with his later years as a dapper, enigmatic figure of the avant-garde.

jeff koons gagosian porcelain series review

Jeff Koons's latest exhibition at Gagosian Gallery in New York features his new series of large-scale porcelain and stainless-steel sculptures, including the centerpiece *Aphrodite* (2016–21), an eight-and-a-half-foot-tall nude. The show marks Koons's first solo presentation in New York in seven years and follows a turbulent period in his career, including record auction sales, a move to Pace Gallery and back to Gagosian, and two lawsuits. Critic Christopher Garcia Valle panned the works as unstimulating and banal, arguing they fail to awe viewers despite their technical ambition and massive scale.

alex da corte modern art museum of fort worth review

Alex Da Corte's mid-career survey, "The Whale," is on view at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, featuring works that repurpose pop-cultural icons like Disney villains and Mariah Carey to explore themes of erasure and violence. The exhibition includes pieces such as *A Time to Kill* (2016), which obliquely references the 2016 Pulse nightclub shooting through an inverted Elsa standee, and *The Great Pretender* (2021), which removes Lily Tomlin from a TIME magazine cover to comment on queer erasure.

Todd Gray Reframes Black Diasporic History

Todd Gray's exhibition "Portals" at Perrotin in Los Angeles features multi-paneled photo assemblages that juxtapose images of slavery with European art, architecture, and formal gardens, exploring the evolution of Black history and identity. The show coincides with the opening of his commissioned installation "Octavia's Gaze" (2025) at the new David Geffen Galleries of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Gray's works incorporate his own photographs alongside sources like Hubble Space Telescope imagery, creating layered visual puzzles that invite viewers to find connections and ask questions about African diasporic identity.

Dean Sameshima review – did the neighbours really not know? The extreme LA sex clubs hidden in plain sight

A new exhibition at Soft Opening in London presents Dean Sameshima's "Wonderland" series, photographs taken in the mid-1990s that document the exteriors of queer sex clubs and bathhouses in Los Angeles's Silver Lake neighborhood. The images, shot in a stark, formal style during daylight, capture the unremarkable facades of these clandestine spaces, with only descriptive titles hinting at the activities within.

Raphael Met Museum Retrospective Review

raphael met museum retrospective review

The Metropolitan Museum of Art has launched "Raphael: Sublime Poetry," the first major retrospective of the Renaissance master ever staged in the United States. Curated by Carmen C. Bambach, the exhibition features 237 works, including rare loans of drawings and monumental tapestries that have not left Madrid since the 16th century. While some of his most famous paintings remain in Europe, the show provides an exhaustive look at the artist's development from a teenage prodigy to a papal favorite.

The Big Review | Lacma's David Geffen Galleries ★★★★

The Swiss architect Peter Zumthor's new $724 million building for the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (Lacma), now called the David Geffen Galleries, has opened after nearly two decades of anticipation. The swooping concrete-and-glass structure is praised for its harnessing of natural light and horizontality, creating a stunning showcase for antiquities and inviting the city inside with floor-to-ceiling windows offering views of the La Brea Tar Pits and Wilshire Boulevard. The building performs best with sculpture and decorative objects, with standout works including Liz Glynn's "The Futility of Conquest" (2023) and Manjunath Kamath's "Vikatonarva" (2024).

art guide new york exhibitions

The article reviews the joint exhibition "Hunks" at Bureau gallery in New York, featuring works by painter Julia Rommel and photographer Lucas Blalock. Rommel's post-minimalist abstract paintings, created through folding and stapling canvases, explore color and texture with a personal touch, while Blalock's digitally manipulated photographs blend studio effects and surreal editing. The show runs through February 21, 2026, at the gallery's 112 Duane Street location.

Tracey Emin’s Cult of the Self

A major retrospective of Tracey Emin's work, "A Second Life," is on view at Tate Modern in London. The exhibition presents the artist's deeply personal and confessional body of work, including iconic pieces like "My Bed" and "Exorcism of the Last Painting I Ever Made," which chronicle intimate experiences of love, trauma, and self-exploration through text, objects, and raw imagery.

art best and worst art of 2025 list

Cultured's art critic reflects on the best and worst of 2025, highlighting standout moments including Salman Toor's 2007 portrait of Zohran Mamdani (now mayor-elect of New York), the posthumous Jack Whitten survey "The Messenger" at MoMA, and Anne Imhof's epic production "DOOM: House of Hope" at the Park Avenue Armory. The article also notes Mamdani's arts-friendly transition committee and the broader resilience of artists amid political turmoil.

art los angeles fall openings review

The article is a review of fall art openings in Los Angeles, written by Juliana Halpert for her Critics’ Table debut. Halpert surveys a range of exhibitions, including Calvin Marcus's show at Karma, Stanya Kahn's solo presentation, the Hammer Museum's "Made in L.A." biennial and its scrappier counterpart "Made in HelLA," Josh Smith's grim reaper paintings at David Zwirner, and Adam Alessi's show at Hoffman Donahue. She also recounts attending the Poetic Research Bureau's 25th anniversary party and fundraiser at 2220 Arts + Archives, where musician Jack Skelley performed. The review weaves a thematic thread of mortality and the macabre, noting how many shows this season engage with death, from fake blood and skulls to sinister landscapes.

Can a Play Capture an Artist as Enigmatic as Henry Darger?

Can a Play Capture an Artist as Enigmatic as Henry Darger?

A new play, *Bughouse*, is attempting to portray the life of reclusive artist Henry Darger on stage at New York's Vineyard Theater. The one-man show, starring John Kelly, draws from Darger's own lengthy autobiography to depict his traumatic childhood, institutionalization, and decades of solitary life in Chicago, where he secretly created his vast, fantastical artwork and writings.

V&A Rising Voices review – can decades of stunning global art really be squished into three rooms?

The V&A Museum in London has mounted an exhibition titled "Rising Voices" that attempts to summarize three decades of the Asia Pacific Triennial, a vast survey of contemporary art from Asia, Australia, and the Pacific organized by Queensland Art Gallery. The show crams works from multiple continents, island nations, and Indigenous cultures into just three rooms, featuring bark cloth paintings from Papua New Guinea, Indigenous Australian abstracts, shark sculptures from the Torres Strait, and Tahitian textiles. Many works address colonialism, political oppression, and tyranny, with artists like Elisabet Kauage, Pala Pothupitiye, and Svay Ken using art as resistance. The exhibition includes pieces by Maryam Ayeen, Abbas Shahsavar, Lila Warrimou, Pennyrose Sosa, Aline Amaru, Brenda V Fajardo, and Heri Dono.

Zineb Sedira review: A chic ode to revolutionary cinema, brainy boozers – and exceptional berets

Zineb Sedira's exhibition at Tate Britain presents a cinematic and sculptural homage to La Cinémathèque Algérienne, the Algerian film archive founded in 1965 that became a hub for leftist African filmmakers. The show recreates a 1970s Algerian cafe in Paris, complete with a jukebox, books on revolutionary cinema, and a model movie theater screening a documentary about the archive's director, Boudjemaâ Karèche. Sedira, born in Paris to Algerian parents and based in London, weaves personal and political narratives to explore identity, diaspora, and the role of art in social change.

Two Museums Take on Performative Masculinity, Looksmaxxing, Incels, and Other Macho Buzzwords That Don’t Belong There.

The Stedelijk Museum and Kunstmuseum St. Gallen have co-organized an exhibition titled "Beyond the Manosphere: Masculinities Today," which aims to critically examine contemporary masculinity and its online manifestations such as incels, looksmaxxing, and pickup artists. The show features works by artists including Reba Maybury and Richard Serra, and is curated by Melanie Bühler, with directors Rein Wolfs and Gianni Jetzer overseeing the project. The exhibition will travel from the Stedelijk to the Kunstmuseum St. Gallen later this year.

The Met’s Costume Institute Needs an Art History Lesson

The Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute spring exhibition, "Costume Art," pairs fashion with artworks from the Met's collection, including ancient Greek statues and Andy Warhol screenprints, alongside garments by designers from Charles James to CFGNY. Curator Andrew Bolton aims to suggest that fashion can expand understanding of art, but the show's juxtapositions often feel vague and sloppy, with only occasional resonant pairings like a Jean Paul Gaultier shirt and Joe Brainard drawing linked by queer artist lineage.