Curators and museum directors from leading institutions worldwide selected their favorite exhibitions of 2025, highlighting a diverse range of shows. Standouts include Wolfgang Tillmans at Centre Pompidou, Paris, praised for its generous scope and integration of the library space; 'Encounters: Giacometti x Mona Hatoum' at Barbican Art Gallery, London, noted for its dialogue across time; and Ithell Colquhoun's retrospective at Tate St Ives, which repositions the artist from a Surrealist footnote to a major figure. Other acclaimed exhibitions include Noah Davis at Barbican Art Gallery, Linder at Hayward Gallery, Hamad Butt at Whitechapel Gallery, and Caroline Walker at Hepworth Wakefield.
This article matters because it offers a curated, expert-driven snapshot of the most significant museum exhibitions of the year, reflecting current curatorial priorities and critical discourse. The selections reveal trends such as the rehabilitation of overlooked artists (Colquhoun, Butt), the pairing of historical and contemporary figures (Giacometti and Hatoum), and the continued importance of politically engaged and conceptually rigorous work. The responses also underscore how exhibitions are evaluated not just for their art but for their institutional daring, spatial inventiveness, and cultural impact.