Art World Dos and Don’ts for 2025
Hyperallergiceditors round up the trends and habits we hope will be left behind in 2024 — and those we want to embrace more fully in the new year.
by Valentina Di Liscia, Hakim Bishara, Hrag Vartanian and Lisa Yin Zhang 
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12. Museums Appointing Provenance Researchers— The Met Museum hired its first-ever head of Provenance Research this year, after a string of high-profile restitution scandals that led to government seizures of artworks believed to have been looted or otherwise improperly acquired. It’s about time for institutions to have dedicated teams pursuing this work rather than relegating it to overwhelmed and underpaid curators.
13. Playlists for Exhibitions— As interdisciplinary as the art world claims to be, how did it take so long for us to start incorporating music into the gallery-going experience? We think playlists add another dimension to viewing art, a personal touch, as evinced by the soundtrack Manny Vega curated for his exhibitionByzantine Bembéat the Museum of the City of New York this year.
14. QR Codes— Let’s face it, those printed press releases and checklists that galleries hand out always end up in the trash, wasting resources and polluting our precious planet. Art institutions that still don’t use QR codes should join the trend. Your grandchildren will thank you.
15. Audiobook Catalogs — While audiobooks are booming in the publishing industry, the field of art has yet to catch up on this trend — granted, this might be partly because so many artbooks are simply sales catalogues and not really supposed to be read, but that’s another story. Earlier this month, I heard Duke University will be creating an audiobook version of Eunsong Kim’s The Politics of Collecting book (check out our podcast with the author), and I hope it is part of a trend to allow us another way to engage with important volumes that we can listen to while we drive, cook, clean, go for a walk, or toil away in our studios. Audiobooks are great, and as someone who listens to them all the time, it would be great to have more art content to explore.
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