The 20 Most Powerless People in the Art World: 2025 Edition
Hyperallergic’s annual antidote to the lists of wealthy collectors, royals, and so-called tastemakers that pervade the art media.
Headlines
- All
- Africa
- Asia
- Business
- Culture
- Environment
- Europe
- Gaming
- Markets
- Middle East
- Movies & TV
- Music
- Politics
- Science
- South America
- Tech
- World News
Bookshop’s Bestselling Nonfiction Books of 2025
For finding a good book, there is no substitute for going into your local independent bookstore and browsing what’s on the front tables, the bestsellers shelf, and the staff picks. But bookshop.org is an amalgam of online sales some of the best indie bookstores in the country
The Truth Physics Can No Longer Ignore. “To truly understand living systems...
The Truth Physics Can No Longer Ignore . “To truly understand living systems as self-organized, autonomous agents, physicists need to abandon their ‘just the particles, ma’am’ mentality.” 💬 Join the discussion on kottke.org →
Faith Ringgold's Story Quilts Get to the Heart of Being Human
Through her creative lives as author, illustrator, painter, quilter, sculptor, and activist, Ringgold spoke to the urgency and vulnerability of life.
Allspice is a single spice?! “Allspice is the dried fruit of the...
Allspice is a single spice?! “Allspice is the dried fruit of the Pimenta dioica plant.” 💬 Join the discussion on kottke.org →
We Asked Four AI Coding Agents to Rebuild Minesweeper… “Cloning Minesweeper isn’t...
We Asked Four AI Coding Agents to Rebuild Minesweeper… “Cloning Minesweeper isn’t a trivial task that can be done in just a handful of lines of code, but it’s also not an incredibly complex system that requires many interlocking moving parts.” 💬 Join the discussion on
Wes Anderson Brings Joseph Cornell’s Studio to Life
The whimsical filmmaker recreated the Queens artist's home studio at Gagosian Gallery in Paris, the city Cornell longed for but never visited.
Happy Holidays, New York!
A letter to Mayor Mamdani, medieval psalms at the Morgan, and divine chaos at The Met.
The Case for a Public Social Media Platform. “What if the United...
The Case for a Public Social Media Platform . “What if the United States government decided to, overnight, nationalize Facebook and make it a digital division of the post office. What would that look like?” 💬 Join the discussion on kottke.org →
Hyperallergic’s Art Tarotscope for the Winter Solstice
After a long period of feeling frozen, the new year hints at signs of thaw and forward movement.
If Stayin’ Alive Had Been Written in 16th Century
Watch Jonas Wolf and three friends sing a choral arrangement of the Bee Gee’s Stayin’ Alive in the style of a madrigal . Just in case (like the me of 1 minute ago) you don’t know what that is (although you will recognize it from just a few seconds of listening to the video),
Finland uses a progressive scale for speeding tickets; the fine amount is...
Finland uses a progressive scale for speeding tickets; the fine amount is based in part on income. In 2023, a businessman got hit with a €121,000 fine . 💬 Join the discussion on kottke.org →
Meticulously Sculpted Books by Brian Dettmer Explore the Inner Workings of Information
In 'In·Formation,' out-of-date reference books are troves of imagery and data. Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member today and support independent arts publishing for as little as $7 per month. The article Meticulously Sculpted Books by Brian
Top 10 Alternative Christmas Movie Lists: Horror, Action, Comedy & More
Die Hard is a Christmas movie. That once-contrarian categorization has increasingly been accepted over the past couple of decades, at least since an editor with whom I’ve often worked first declared it in a Slate roundup. As a result, John McTiernan’s sturdy piece of
Tragedy Struck Composer Irving Berlin on Christmas Day. Years Later, He Would Write One of the All-Time Holiday Classics
“White Christmas” is one of the world’s best-selling tunes and continues to be in rotation more than eight decades later
The Dead Mall Society
"Standing in the wreckage of these spaces unlocks a sensation people often crave, but can’t name."
Banksy’s Heartbreaking Christmas Mural
Also: Messy Egyptian gods at The Met, the moral weight of nativity scenes, and the British Museum’s latest “decolonizing” stunt.
Random access
Under each post on my blog there’s a button that says RANDOM. I’ll confess that reading posts I wrote ten or twenty years ago is often a surprise. I wrote each one, but I have no recollection of doing so. We can no longer expect that others will experience an introduction to us
The Life and Work of Afrobeat Creator Fela Kuti Explored by Radiolab’s Jad Abumrad
When discussing a musician like Fela Kuti, many of our usual terms fail us. They fail us, that is, if we came of age in a musical culture in which artists and bands put out an album of ten or so lyrics-forward songs every two or three years, promoting it on tour while also