The article reviews four new art books published in June. It covers a Taschen monograph on French street artist JR, featuring his large-scale refugee portraits and his upcoming wrapping of the Pont Neuf in Paris; an oral history of the Venice Biennale edited by Massimiliano Gioni with interviews with 16 curators spanning 1993 to 2026; an investigative book by Matthew Campbell about antiquities smuggler Douglas Latchford and the illicit Southeast Asian artefact trade; and a volume of conversations with Turkish curator Vasif Kortun about his career and the Istanbul art scene.
These books matter because they offer diverse, behind-the-scenes perspectives on contemporary art—from street art and monumental public interventions to the inner workings of the world's most prestigious biennial, the dark side of the global art market through looted antiquities, and the development of an influential non-Western curatorial practice. They collectively illuminate how art is made, curated, traded, and contested across different contexts.