“If you are feeling despondent about the art scene, give up the scene, but don’t give up the art.” This exhortation arrives toward the end of Audrey Flack’s memoir, published months before her passing in June, as an outstretched hand to all of us who love art and its community but are disenchanted with the mainstream art world — a struggle she knew well. With Darkness Came Stars chronicles her coming of age in 1950s New York, a process of constantly wading against tides of misogyny, classism, and general avarice. It was one of my
favorite art books of 2024, among a host of titles chosen by our editors and contributors. Check out the full list below! Among these books is the novel Martyr! by poet Kaveh Akbar, who, as it turns out, is also secretly a painter. He shares this in common with Nobel Prize-winning author Orhan Pamuk, who just published a book of his illustrated journals. The two sat down to discuss making one’s diaries public, writers who paint in private, and the joys of crafting fiction. If you maintain clandestine pastimes and artistic practices, as most of us do, this conversation is for you. Read on for more in this edition, including a visual history of undergarments, Corky Lee’s radical photography, and the entwined lineage of Black visual art and music. Let us know what your favorite art books of 2024 were!
— Lakshmi Rivera Amin, Associate Editor
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