Art Books This Week: Abby Aldrich Rockefeller, Bruce Gilden, Gary Hume, and Black Curators
A new crop of art publications ranges from American folk art to museum history, with catalogues and essays that connect exhibitions in New York, Brescia, and Maine to larger questions about collecting, photography, colonialism, and institutional change.
At The Museum of Modern Art in New York, “American folk art: Revisiting the collection of Abby Aldrich Rockefeller” accompanies an exhibition on view until 9 August. The catalogue, by Starr Figura and Lydia Mullin, revisits the collection assembled by Abby Aldrich Rockefeller, who cofounded MoMA in 1929 while also building one of the country’s most significant holdings of 19th-century American folk art. Sourced across New England, Pennsylvania, and the mid-Atlantic, including Maryland and Virginia, the collection spans weathervanes, stencilled still-lifes, and other objects made by craftspeople, self-taught amateurs, and artists working outside academic convention.
Photography takes a different turn in “Bruce Gilden: A Closer Look,” edited by Denis Curti and published by Skira. The book accompanies a major monographic exhibition at Museo di Santa Giulia in Brescia through 23 August and gathers about 90 images from Gilden’s “Faces” series, made between 2013 and 2024 in cities around the world. It also includes early black-and-white photographs, plus new reinterpretations of Raphael’s “The Angel” and “Christ Blessing,” which reflect Gilden’s interest in grace as a visual and spiritual idea.
Martin Gayford’s “Gary Hume: Begging For It” turns to the evolution of the British artist’s practice, from the glossy “Door” paintings that first brought him attention to the Freeze show of 1988, where he exhibited alongside fellow Young British Artists. The book frames Hume’s career as a study in both opportunity and constraint, and in his own words, the stillness of painting remains central to its appeal.
Two other titles widen the conversation. “Imagining an Archipelago: Art from Cuba, Guam, the Philippines, Puerto Rico, and Their Diasporas,” edited by Jessamine Batario, accompanies a show at the Colby College Museum of Art in Maine running from 11 July to 6 June 2027. The project uses the archipelago as an interpretive framework for 40 artists, including Edra Soto and Isa Gagarin, and addresses colonialism, migration, climate crisis, resilience, and cultural self-determination.
“Black Curators Matter: Conversations on Art and Change,” edited by Kellie Jones and Tumelo Mosaka, looks at the impact of Black curators on US art museums since the 1970s. Through conversations with Lowery Stokes Sims, Deborah Willis, Richard J. Powell, Kellie Jones, Thelma Golden, Franklin Sirmans, and a younger generation that includes Ashley James, Kalia Brooks, Aaron Bryant, and Thomas Jean Lax, the book traces a history of institutional change that is still unfolding.
Taken together, these publications suggest how art books continue to do more than document exhibitions: they preserve arguments, map lineages, and make visible the people who shape the field behind the scenes.
