In 2025, Whitewall’s covers became more than images—they became declarations. Across four issues, our cover stories traced the artists, designers, and cultural visionaries shaping how we think, feel, and live now. From the ethical frontiers of artificial intelligence with Refik Anadol to the ancestral threads of memory and ecology woven by Cecilia Vicuña, each cover marked a moment where creativity met conviction.
The year unfolded through distinct yet interconnected themes: optimism and world-building in Winter; craftsmanship, place, and dialogue in Spring’s India-focused Art Issue; light, perception, and painterly persistence in Summer; and harmony—between people, land, sound, and spirit—in Fall. Together, these covers tell a story of artists working across disciplines and geographies, grounded in community, ethics, and imagination. Below, we revisit each 2025 issue and the nine cover figures who defined a year shaped by vision, care, and cultural resonance.
Winter 2025 Covers: World Builders and the Power of Optimism
The Winter 2025 Experience Issue cover featuring Refik Anadol.
Amoako Boafo, “Monstera Leaf Background,” 2020, oil on canvas and mixed media, 81 1/2 x 65 3/4 inches, 207 x 167 cm, courtesy of the artist and Mariane Ibrahim.
Winter 2025 opened the year with a trio of artists united by a belief in art’s ability to reframe how we experience the world—through technology, painting, and public space.
On one cover, Refik Anadol offered a vision of artificial intelligence rooted not in fear, but in hope. Speaking with Anadol, it was impossible not to feel buoyed by his conviction that AI, when used ethically and intentionally, can expand creativity and even foster healing. Grounded in responsible data practices, his studio’s work demonstrates how emerging technologies can connect audiences across cultures and geographies while remaining deeply human at their core.
Another cover featured Amoako Boafo, whose richly textured portraits continue to reshape contemporary figurative painting. Ahead of his solo exhibition at Vienna’s Belvedere Museum, Boafo reflected on the importance of community—both as subject and method. The exhibition marked a meaningful return to a city where he once studied, situating his work in dialogue with historical masterpieces and underscoring the lineage of influence that informs his distinct visual language.
Photo-souvenir, Daniel Buren, “La Baie vitrée recto verso,” work in situ, colored self-adhesive filters, Anglet 2023, © Alexandra Vaquero, courtesy of the artist and Mennour, Paris.
Completing the Winter issue covers was Daniel Buren, a master of site-specific intervention. Working largely without a traditional studio, Buren’s immersive installations respond directly to their surroundings, transforming architecture and landscape through light, color, and rhythm. His work invites viewers to see familiar spaces anew, reminding us that art’s power often lies in its ability to subtly, joyfully disrupt perception.
Spring 2025 Covers: India, Craft, and Cultural Continuity
Noelle Kadar with HH Sawai Padmanabh Singh at the Jaipur Centre for Art, photo by Lodovico Colli di Felizzano.
Asim Waqif, “Chaal”, 2024. Courtesy of Art House and NMACC.
Whitewall’s annual Art Issue for Spring 2025 turned its focus to India, guest edited by Noelle Kadar of the Jaipur Centre for Art, with covers that celebrated craftsmanship, collaboration, and living cultural ecosystems.
One of our covers spotlighted Chanakya Atelier, led by artistic director Karishma Swali, whose nearly three decades of work have redefined the role of artisanal embroidery on a global stage. From early collaborations with Maria Grazia Chiuri to creating immersive textiles for Dior’s runway sets—echoing works by artists such as Judy Chicago and Faith Ringgold—Chanakya has seamlessly bridged art, fashion, and heritage. Over time, their hand-embroidered creations moved from set design into garments and accessories themselves, affirming craft as both contemporary expression and cultural preservation.
Making-of scenography by Rithika Merchant, © Prarthna Singh and Chanakya School of Craft.
Another of our covers centered on the Jaipur Centre for Art, featuring Noelle Kadar alongside HH Maharaja Sawai Padmanabh Singh at Jaipur’s City Palace. More than an exhibition venue, JCA operates as a residency and public arts initiative that connects contemporary practice with the city’s centuries-old traditions of design and making. Its inaugural exhibition, A New Way of Seeing, curated by Peter Nagy, established the institution as a vital new force in India’s cultural landscape, open, accessible, and deeply rooted in place.
The third of the Spring covers highlighted Asim Waqif, whose boundary-breaking practice fuses art, architecture, and activism. Known for transforming discarded urban materials into sprawling installations, Waqif challenges viewers to physically engage with his work while confronting issues of waste, ecology, and modernity. His projects reject passive consumption, instead offering art as a space for participation, discomfort, and reflection.
Summer 2025 Covers: Light, Painting, and Timeless Perception
James Turrell cover of the Whitewall Summer 2025 Impact Issue.
Jean-Michele Othoniel Avignon © Francois Deladerriere, courtesy of the artist.
Summer 2025 celebrated artists whose practices engage the senses—through light, gesture, and the enduring relevance of painting.
One of our covers featured Jean-Michel Othoniel, whose luminous works in glass and metal were poised to transform multiple cultural heritage sites through both outdoor and interior installations. Long committed to public art, Othoniel emphasized its democratic reach—meeting audiences where they are and forging unexpected emotional connections outside traditional museum walls.
Cecily Brown on the cover of Whitewall’s Summer 2025 Impact Issue.
Cecily Brown, “We didn’t mean to go to sea,” 2018, oil on linen, 89 x 83 inches, The Rachofsky Collection. © Cecily Brown, photo by Genevieve Hanson.
Another of our covers spotlighted British painter Cecily Brown, whose recent solo exhibition at the Barnes Foundation reaffirmed painting’s vitality. Brown’s work embraces contradiction—where abstraction and figuration collide—and her reflections on the medium’s cyclical declarations of death and rebirth underscored why painting continues to resonate across generations.
Rounding out the Summer issue covers was James Turrell, featured in conjunction with his largest European exhibition in over two decades at Gagosian Le Bourget. Few artists have so profoundly altered our perception of light, space, and time. Turrell’s work asks for patience and presence, offering experiences that unfold slowly and reward deep looking.
Fall 2025 Covers: Harmony, Community, and the Thread of the Earth
Alexandre Mattiussi in his Paris studio, photo by Victor Jacques.
Fall 2025’s Harmony Issue embraced balance, connection, and creative alignment—across fashion, music, and ancestral memory.
One of our covers captured Alexandre Mattiussi of Ami Paris in his characteristically relaxed Parisian studio, shortly after presenting his Spring/Summer 2026 collection. Rooted in friendship, family, and lived experience, his work continues to celebrate community and authenticity, offering a refreshing counterpoint to fashion’s excesses.
Another cover brought readers to Studio Miraval in Provence with Damien Quintard, where music, landscape, and history converge. Amid vineyards and revived recording spaces, Quintard’s vision for collaboration and shared creative energy echoed the issue’s theme of harmony across disciplines.
The final Fall cover featured Cecilia Vicuña, whose five-decade practice weaves poetry, ecology, ritual, and resistance. Named the inaugural recipient of Art Basel’s Icon Artist Award in 2025, Vicuña’s work—spanning delicate precarios to monumental quipus—remains devoted to what she calls “the thread of the Earth.” As she prepared for Reverse Migration, a Poetic Journey at the Irish Museum of Modern Art, her cover story embodied renewal, remembrance, and the enduring power of art as a living, breathing act of connection.
Cecilia Vicuna, Turbine Hall, Tate Modern; Courtesy of the artist and Tate Modern.
