For Your Bookshelf: 10 Art Books Published in 2025
by Christina Nafziger
Painting Writing Texting (2025) by Chantal Joffe & Olivia Laing published by MACK.
As an avid reader and writer, let’s just say I buy a LOT of books—and if it’s about art? Forget about it. My (art) book library is my most treasured collection in my home. These books keep me inspired, keep me motivated, and keep me headed in the right direction towards my goals.
Every year around the holidays, I make a little wish-list of the art books that have come out the past year. They typically range from exhibition catalogs, essay collections on contemporary art, artist biographies, small press experimentations, and memoir-style reflections. The one thread that connects them all are the ways they expand the canon of art history and the ways they stretch my own thinking around art. In a world that changes at a such a fast (and, frankly, unsustainable) pace, the books I’m interested in help me to slow down for some deep listening, deep thinking, and deep learning.
There have been so many incredible art books published in 2025, and I’m excited to share (in no particular order) my wish-list with you!
Feminism. Art. Capitalism., 2025 by Angela Dimitrakaki. (Pluto Press.) Image courtesy of Pluto Press.
Feminism. Art. Capitalism.
by Angela Dimitrakaki (Pluto Press)
In a time of political turmoil, it’s hard to find meaning in the creative work that we do. For me, it is helpful to ground my work in my values and beliefs. This book “calls for a revolutionary rethinking of the feminist struggle and its relation to art.” How is does and can art and feminism work together? How do they and can they exist in a capitalist system? Is it possible for our art to be used as a tool for resistance? I’m eager (and hopeful!) to learn from this book.
The War of Art: A History of Artists’ Protest in America
by Lauren O’Neill-Butler (Verso)
To me, this book seems aligned with themes within Feminism. Art. Capitalism, but in a way that provides a specific kind of art historical context. The War of Art emphasizes the role or the artist within activist groups and movements throughout time, as it tells the history of “artist-led activism and the global political and aesthetic debates of the 1960s to the present.” There is no lone genius in this book. Instead, it celebrates collective action and solidarity. This books is definitely for the art and politics lover as well as the artist looking for inspiration in dark political times. We artists can in fact make a difference, and this book rightfully demonstrates this as it outlines how it’s been done before us.
Yoko: A Biography
by David Sheff (Simon & Schuster)
I recently saw the Yoko Ono retrospective at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, titled Music of the Mind. It was so refreshing to see the artist’s work over time without the looming shadow of John Lennon, who she married in the late 60s. I’ve been a huge fan of her performance work from he 60s and 70s and the impact she had on the Fluxus movement, so I thought I knew what I was getting into. I was SO WRONG! Her art career and life was (and continues to be) such a long and winding road, and I am so looking forward to reading about all aspects of her life in this new biography.
Queer Histories, 2025. Edited with text by Adriano Pedrosa, Julia Bryan-Wilson. Text by André Mesquita, Leandro Muniz, Teo Teotônio. Courtesy of Museo de Arte de São Paulo Assis Chateaubriand.
Queer Histories
Edited with text by Adriano Pedrosa, Julia Bryan-Wilson. Text by André Mesquita, Leandro Muniz, Teo Teotônio. (Museo de Arte de São Paulo Assis Chateaubriand)
Queer Histories is another exhibition that I wish I could have seen in the flesh, but unfortunately it was much too far away for me (Brazil). Thankfully I can explore the contents of the exhibition—which included more than 300 works ranging from sculptures, paintings, photography, video, and more by LGTQIA+ artists from all over theworld—in this comprehensive and gorgeous catalog. The catalog’s sections echoes the curatorial organization of the exhibition, considering the works through the lens of eight themes: “Love and Desire,” “Icons and Muses,” “Sacred and Profane,” “Spaces and Territories,” “Abstractions,” “Ecosexualities and Otherworldly Fantasies,” “Biblioteca Cuir,” and “Archives.” I’m personally excited about queer histories and archives, but I’m also looking forward to seeing the art in the section “Love and Desire.” This book is definitely for the art history lover and for the curatorial minded.
Painting Writing Texting
by Olivia Laing & Chantal Joffe (MACK)
I’m a long-time fan of Olivia Laing—one of my all time favorite writers who write about art. If you aren’t familiar she’s written several essay collections, including The Lonely City, which explores loneliness and its presence in the work of artists like Andy Warhol and Edward Hopper. Her new book is a bit different. A collaboration between the author and the painter Chantal Joffe, Painting Writing Texting is a conversation between the two, chronicling a long-time friendship between critic and artist, writer and painter, friend and friend. This book offers a beautiful look into their longtime friendship and how their creative practices mingle and mix.
[Image credit (left): Chantal Joffe, Reading in Bed 6, 2025, from Painting Writing Texting (MACK, 2025). Courtesy of Victoria Miro and MACK Painting Writing Texting (2025) by Chantal Joffe & Olivia Laing published by MACK. Image credit (right): Chantal Joffe, Olivia in the Silk Coat, 2025, from Painting Writing Texting (MACK, 2025). Courtesy of Victoria Miro and MACK. Courtesy of Victoria Miro and MACK Painting Writing Texting (2025) by Chantal Joffe & Olivia Laing published by MACK. Instagram: @mack_publishing]
The United Colors of Robert Earl Paige, 2025 by Mariela Acuña and Allison Peters Quinn. (University of Minnesota Press.) Courtesy of Hyde Park Art Center.
The United Colors of Robert Earl Paige
by Mariela Acuña and Allison Peters Quinn (University of Minnesota Press)
If you don’t know about Robert Earl Paige, well…now you do. You’re welcome. Paige is an experimental artist, designer, educator, legendary icon, and staple in the Chicago art scene. This exhibition catalog is the first book about Paige and chronicles his art career working in works across textile design, painting, collage, and sculpture. A companion to Paige’s exhibition of the same name at the Hyde Park Art Center in Chicago, the book “contextualizes his work in relation to social and artistic movements, from the minimalism and abstraction of the 1960s and 1970s to AfriCOBRA and the Black Arts Movement in Chicago and across the United States.”
The First Homosexuals: The Birth of a New Identity 1869-1939
by Jonathan D. Katz (Monacelli Press)
I had the privilege of seeing this exhibition earlier this year at Wrightwood 659, a unique and gorgeous art space in Chicago. An ambitious exhibition showcasing over 300 works by over 125 artists, the show “examines how homosexuals were cleaved from the rest of the population and given an identity which turned on their sexuality.” The exhibition confronts and challenges the ways in which sexuality and gender were teased out, labelled, and defined during a specific time, contextualizing how these definitions altered norms, notions, and perceptions but cultural and personally. My favorite parts of the exhibition were the portraits of key figures within these times—many of whom I hadn’t know of before. The catalog allows for folks to dig deeper into these important histories that are often lost to time.
Dyani White Hawk: Love Language, 2025. Edited with text by Siri Engberg, Tarah Hogue. Text by Dyani White Hawk, mary v. bordeaux, Joyce Tsai, heather ahtone, Marie Watt, Christi Belcourt, Candice Hopkins, Layli Long Soldier. Courtesy of Walker Art Center.
Dyani White Hawk: Love Language
Edited with text by Siri Engberg, Tarah Hogue. Text by Dyani White Hawk, mary v. bordeaux, Joyce Tsai, heather ahtone, Marie Watt, Christi Belcourt, Candice Hopkins, Layli Long Soldier. (Walker Art Center)
Love Language is another beautiful catalog I truly need on my shelf! Accompanying the exhibition of the same name at the Walker Art Museum in Minneapolis, this catalog showcases the last 15 years of Dyani White Hawk’s (Sičáŋǧu Lakota, b. 1976) work. Hawk’s work is abstract, colorful, and explores connection: between earth and sky, past and present. She works across different media, such as painting , sculpture, video, and my personal favorite, quillwork and beadwork. I unfortunately have not seen this exhibition in person (yet!), but I can at least have a piece of it in my library!
Vaginal Davis: Magnificent Product
by Vaginal Davis (Walther Konig Verlag)
If you’re craving a good memoir like I am, then this one is for you. The impact Vaginal Davis has had on performance art, drag, and queer history as a whole cannot be overstated. Vaginal Davis is a “visual artist, punk rocker, ‘drag terrorist’ and genderqueer icon,” and she’s also been curator, educator, filmmaker, and more. She’s been active in the queer punk scene in LA, NYC, and Berlin, but her influence can be seen around the world. Learn about the cultural legend herself in her own words in this new memoir.
Configurations of Time: Imagining Other Temporalities in the Artist Residency, 2024. Written by Angela Serino. Courtesy of the publisher, Set Margins’.
Configurations of Time: Imagining Other Temporalities in the Artist Residency
by Angela Serino (Set Margins’)
Technically, this book was originally published in 2024…but I loved it so much I had to include it here! Written by curator and writer Angela Serino, this book reveals “an alternate lens to rethink how we process art—and life—inside residency time.” Artists are often encouraged (and pressured) to produce, produce, produce. This pressure is heightened during an artist residency. How can we slow down and value the process itself? How can others support the natural cycle of an artist’s process? The work of creating art doesn’t just start when the brush hits the canvas. It involves research, looking, listening, learning, exploring, making mistakes, taking care of ourselves…the list goes on. I love the way this book not only acknowledges this, but considers its value. I highly recommend this book for an artist…especially if you are considering a residency!
Configurations of Time: Imagining Other Temporalities in the Artist Residency, 2024. Written by Angela Serino. Courtesy of the publisher, Set Margins’.
