The Best of 2024
My eight favorite art shows of last year
Two weeks into 2025 may be a bit late to publish my “Best of 2024” list, but better late than never.
This post contains my eight favorite art shows that I saw over the past year—my first year of regularly practicing art criticism. But before I get into that, I’d like to say something first.
When I was younger, I would only visit museums and galleries to study past masters and to learn how to make a great painting. I reproduced artworks I admired in my sketchbook and tried to reverse-engineer why they worked. I would superimpose geometric diagrams on top to decipher underlying compositional principles. Before I had my handy iPad with millions of colors at my fingertips, I would write down the most important colors on top of my drawings to see if there was any “color theory” at play (something, I have become disappointed to learn does not really exist in the sort of rigorous way that I imagine it does for music theory—though I’m no musician). From the age of 11, when I first started taking the cross-town bus to the Met after school, to my early twenties, I have sketched and notated hundreds of paintings in an effort to become a better artist. I have dozens of sketchbooks, 50-100 pages long, many with three or four paintings per page, to attest to this.
Now that my own art has taken a backseat to writing and curation, I visit exhibitions with a slightly different, though equally didactic purpose: to find a subject for a review, or possibly take notes on curation and installation that could inform my own curatorial projects. I have visited museums and galleries only a few times over the past 15 years with the sole purpose of enjoying myself or appreciating the art, full stop. Of course, that happens along the way—I enjoy dissecting art so much that having a good time is an expected externality of these other pursuits, which I take for granted.
When thinking of the shows to include in this list, however, I chose the ones, which personally impressed me. The most enjoyable experience I can have at an art gallery is to be pleasantly surprised. I often write about shows I’ve read about, or expect something from already, which can temper my reaction. But, more than anything, I love to walk into a gallery I had no idea existed or encounter an artist I’ve never seen before and be floored by the experience—to leave thinking: wow I didn’t know you could do that. I would have gladly spent time exploring these art shows even if I were not writing about them – and some of them never even made it into the Substack. So without further ado, here are my top eight, listed in chronological order of when I saw them.
1. Apollinaria Broche’s In the distance there was a glimpse at Marianne Boesky Gallery
If you find it hard to understand the most internet-brained generation, Broche’s mopey, cutesy ceramic sculptures offer a disarmingly relatable and sympathetic view into their world. The shiny anime characters and wilting flowers seem to have been plucked straight from the dreams of a semi-depressed sixteen-year-old e-girl.
Here is a link to my capsule review in my very first Substack post.
2. The Art of the Literary Poster at the Metropolitan Museum
Before advertisements started selling a vision of life that was unrealistically ambitious, late nineteenth-century illustrated posters and magazine inserts focused on bite-size, scrumptious slices of life. With bold color blocking and crisp lines, the prints in this exhibition make picking flowers, walking with your boo under an umbrella, or holding a cat seem so delightfully elegant.
3. Christopher Wool’s Stop See Run at 101 Greenwich St
Did a banshee rip open the walls and lay the gutting bare? Did the building come to life and vomit its insides onto the floor? These tangled sculptures, paintings, prints, and mosaics simultaneously evoke tortured organic life and the chaotic harmony of industrial design. I didn’t know you could make art out of a dilapidated office building, but I guess if you’re an artist as accomplished as Christopher Wool, you can turn anything into art.
Here is a link to my previous Substack review.
4. Nightlife at Marlborough Gallery
A good photograph does not come about by merely being in the right place at the right time with a camera in your hands, although that is a prerequisite. The photographs in this exhibition seemed to have been taken in the most lonesome restaurant booths, the most sexually devious secret chambers, and the most high-class balls that a New York night can offer. And, at the same time, they are beautifully composed, tantalizingly mysterious, and gut-punchingly evocative. This was one of the best shows from Marlborough’s Gallery’s last year in business in New York.
Here is a link to my previous Substack review.
5. Icema’s World by Arthur Simms and Lucy Fradkin at Martos Gallery
When I did a three month bike trip in Spain and France, I had to stay put for a week in Malaga while I waited for my mother to send me a new debit card in the mail. Along with the new card, she included a hand-written note on a post-it, which I kept taped to my handlebars for the remaining month as a reminder of home. Maybe it’s just me, but the items that most evoke the feeling of home are the tiny pieces of detritus – little scraps, discarded notes and crossword puzzles, pen caps, paper clips. In an exhibition dedicated to his mother, Arthur Simms and his wife Lucy Fradkin combined forces to make art out of the sort of stuff you find in your mother’s “everything” drawer. It is a more compelling tribute than anything else I could imagine.
Here is a link to my previous Substack review.
6. Thomas Hirschhorn’s Fake it, Fake it — Til You Fake It at the Gladstone Gallery
I rarely feel scared for my life — even more rarely in art galleries — but I fearfully held my breath when I saw the printed cutouts of Call of Duty warriors turn and point their guns at me in this gallery-cum-battlefield. The cardboard computers and styrofoam coffee mugs, combined with spinning soldiers and emojis hanging from the ceiling, convincingly called into question the distance between facsimile and real warfare. We all know video games are fake, but how do drone pilots view their targets when they shoot missiles looking at screens, using suspiciously similar controllers?
Here is a link to my previous Substack review.
7. Ayiti Toma II: Faith, Family, and Resistance Organized by Tomm El-Saieh at Luhring Augustine Gallery
Ayiti Toma II, a collection of work by modern and contemporary Haitian artists curated by Tomm El-Saieh, proves that folk wisdom is still alive and well, even in an age dominated by AI and data-analytics. Each painting and sculpture has visible imprints of their makers, with no efforts made to deceive the human eye. Vodou spirituality is passed down from person to person in tactile crafts, which contain the verifiable presence of a previous believer. These myths, although ephemeral and otherworldly, are grounded in material human life, which makes them all the more captivating.
8. Paul P.’s Sibilant Esses At Greene Naftali Gallery
Paul P.’s paintings are gentle and almost breezy. Their subjects seem like they could be made of sand, and possibly blow away once you look elsewhere. At the same time, their faces are monumental — they take up whole canvases with necks lounging in contrapposto. Their facial features undulate like mountains of a landscape, with small details flicked on the canvas like clouds in the wind. It is extraordinarily rare to find such expressive subtlety in mark-making combined with structural solidity in composition. These are poetic paintings. I was thoroughly impressed.
Thank you for reading, and a special thank you to Emma Schneider for her edits.