We’re proud to present our list of the best art books of 2024 for your holiday reading, and perhaps to inspire your gifting this winter. Our editors and critics read across genre, subject, and pace this year, from memoirs and graphic novels to catalogs, artist books, and everything in between. Hyperallergic Editor-in-Chief Hrag Vartanian muses on the poignant work of photographer Diana Markosian in Father, while critic Alexandra M. Thomas recommends Nikki A. Greene’s book reframing the study of Black visual art and musical production. Read on for Reviews Editor Natalie Haddad on Trans Hirstory in 99 Objects, Associate Editor Lisa Yin Zhang on scholar Anne Anling Cheng’s essay collection, my love of Audrey Flack’s memoir, and more ordered by publication date in the list below. As always, we approach the “art book” category with flexibility, considering titles that seam the art world with its incalculable intersections with other fields. Let us know what your top books of 2024 are, and happy reading! —Lakshmi Rivera Amin, Associate Editor
Hilary Harkness: Everything for You
The phantasmagorias represented in Hilary Harkness’s monograph Everything for You depict so much that the far right in the United States wants to erase from existence: gloriously hot gay sex, gender-bending of all sorts, the realities of racism in the US, and the horrifying folly of war. And she does it all with a wry, dark humor. Harkness’s witty painted worlds riff on artistic and literary histories, as well as American history, and feel timeless in many ways, but offer a particularly compelling commentary at this moment. In a time when K–12 teachers and college professors are already being forced to submit curricula for review so that legislators and school administrators can curtail conversations on race, LGBTQ+ rights, and topics like Palestine, this book would almost certainly be banned were it ever to appear on a syllabus in countless jurisdictions around the country. All the more reason to pour yourself a strong drink or a cozy mug of tea, and keep yourself warm for at least a little while during the winter we have ahead of us with this sexy and knowing compendium of Harkness’s body of work. – Alexis Clements