This shortlist encompasses the most inspirational photography stories by some of the most revered image-makers we\u2019ve published on Dazed this year. From Kikuji Kawada\u2019s visions of Hiroshima to Daniel Arnold\u2019s gaze on New York in the anarchic present, they span many decades, yet all share a timeless quality.<\/p>\n
Peter Hujar<\/a>\u2019s portraits from the late 1960s through to he early 1980s testify to the fact that great art can remain as resonant and meaningful as ever, while Yorgos Lanthimos<\/a>\u2019s 2024 series of images possesses a timeless, haunting quality that makes it hard to pin down to a particular decade.<\/p>\n What is equally apparent is how artists\u2019 fierce connections to their subjects powerfully draw us in. There are Linder\u2019s humorous but pointedly critical collages, the revival of Sophy Rickett\u2019s thrilling and defiant Pissing Women, a glimpse into the 90s by way of Davide Sorrenti\u2019s era-defining sketches and Polaroids, and David Armstrong\u2019s indelible portraits of friends Nan Goldin<\/a>, Cookie Mueller \u2013 none of which have dimmed one bit despite the passing of time.\u00a0<\/p>\n The past is potent. It makes our turbulent reality feel part of a wider narrative. Seeing artists who\u2019ve gone before us representing beauty and hard times alike, we\u2019re reassured that inevitably the pendulum will swing back again. The world is heavy, but those who channel that fact into memorable aesthetics and worthwhile chronicles give us a sense of hope we so badly need. Enjoy.<\/p>\n Peter Hujar, Eyes Open in the Dark<\/p>\n Gallery \/ 8 images<\/p>\n Despite not having been recognised in his lifetime, this year seems to have been a landmark year in the legacy of Peter Hujar. His life is the subject of a new film, Peter Hujar\u2019s Day, a biographical drama starring Ben Whishaw, written and directed by Ira Sachs; a new photo book, Stay Away From Nothing, about his relationship with Paul Theck was released by Primary Information; and the year opened with a major exhibition, Eyes Open in the Dark, at London\u2019s Raven Row. Fran Lebowitz to Divine and Peter Wojnarowicz, the depth and weight of his portraits of New York\u2019s outr\u00e9 figures and downtown art world figures still resonate as powerfully today as ever.<\/p>\n Read the full story here<\/a> on Dazed.<\/p>\n Linder, Danger Came Smiling (2025)<\/p>\n Gallery \/ 8 images<\/p>\n Having emerged from the punk scene in 1970s Manchester, Linder<\/a>\u2019s critique of the commodification of women\u2019s bodies, homogenised ideas of beauty, consumerism and pornography is as sharp and \u2013 sigh! \u2013as necessary as ever. As her retrospective at the Hayward Gallery opened this year, she told Dazed: \u201cIt\u2019s important to leave your mark, whatever age you are, that\u2019s something to be really mindful of: how to leave a trace for people coming after you.\u201d Deploying photo montage (or, as she put it, \u201cthe love of the cut\u201d), her images speak to ongoing issues about embodied womanhood.<\/p>\n Read the full story here<\/a> on Dazed.<\/p>\n Yorgos Lanthimos, Photographs<\/p>\n Gallery \/ 8 images<\/p>\n The Greek-born director is certainly prolific in cinema, but also in his photo output. His cloth-covered photo book, Dear God, the Parthenon is still broken, was published last May, followed by the monograph, i shall sing these songs beautifully, this September. His first gallery exhibition, at Los Angeles\u2019 Webber space, featured portraits and still lifes. \u201cI\u2019ve really strived to have something out there that is not the films,\u201d he told Dazed, adding, \u201cI\u2019ve consciously become interested in photography as a very separate thing to filmmaking.\u201d He built a darkroom while filming Poor Things \u2013 its star, and Lanthimos\u2019 frequent collaborator, Emma Stone, helped him with film processing.<\/p>\n Read the full story here<\/a> on Dazed.<\/p>\n David Armstrong<\/p>\n Gallery \/ 30 images<\/p>\n This retrospective of carefully composed black-and-white portraits by the late American photographer David Armstrong depicts \u201ca world of drug-fuelled hedonism, of sexual freedom and gender fluidity\u201d. On view ealier this yeat at Luma in Arles (coinciding with this year\u2019s Rencontres d\u2019Arles<\/a> photography festival), curator Matthieu Humery told Dazed: \u201che knew how to deal with the light, the character and the environment all together.\u201d In addition to his signature portraits were a series of display cases filled with hundreds of contact sheets, providing an insight into his eye and editing process, as well as color slideshows of friends at parties.<\/p>\n Read the full story here<\/a> on Dazed.<\/p>\n Kikuji Kawada, Endless Map \u2013 Invisible<\/p>\n Gallery \/ 19 images<\/p>\n Describing his work as an \u201cenigmatic polyhedra\u201d, Kikuji Kawada<\/a>\u2019s exhibition was co-produced by KYOTOGRAPHIE<\/a> \u00d7 SIGMA<\/a> as part of this year\u2019s Rencontres d\u2019Arles photography festival.<\/p>\n In 1958, seven years after the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, 25-year-old photographic assistant Kikuji Kawada accompanied another photographer on assignment to document the remains of the devastation at the bomb site. The images Kawada produced there were later published as part of his landmark series The Map (1965). \u201cThe hidden knowledge that photography possesses lies in the search for the real,\u201d Kawada told Dazed, \u201cor illusory reality.\u201d<\/p>\n Read the full story here<\/a> on Dazed.<\/p>\n Sophy Rickett, Pissing Women<\/p>\n Gallery \/ 4 images<\/p>\n Images of women dressed in corporate attire may not sound fascinating, but they are when shown pissing across London\u2019s financial district. They\u2019re photographed at \u201csites that carried symbolic weight that related to finance, communication, and security\u201d, with an unequivocal spirit of transgression and subversion. \u201cMen seem so carefree; they [piss] in the open while we have to perform it in private,\u201d the artist reflected on gendered urinating customs in an interview with Dazed. Dismissed as perverse by art institutions and coopted by fetish websites (\u201cHow quickly female and queer bodies are funnelled into frameworks of sexualisation and consumption,\u201d Ricketts lamented), the series \u201cstill makes people uncomfortable,\u201d she noted of the work. \u201cIn republishing the photographs now, I want to hold onto that tension rather than neutralise it.\u201d<\/p>\n Read the full story here<\/a> on Dazed.<\/p>\n Glen Luchford, Atlas<\/p>\n Gallery \/ 3 images<\/p>\n British-born, self-taught fashion photographer and portraitist had a show rewinding through his career in Milan, held at the 10-Corso-Como Gallery, nestled in Italy\u2019s ultimate concept store. In addition to Gucci and Prada campaigns, Glen Luchford<\/a> photographed the likes of model Stella Tennant, a baby-faced Kate Moss<\/a>, and Sonic Youth guitarist Thurston Moore. In addition to the photographs, the gallery presented collages, outtakes, and even displayed Luchford\u2019s \u201cmistakes\u201d.<\/p>\n Read the full story here<\/a> on Dazed.<\/p>\n Davide Sorrenti Journals: Volume 1, 1994-1995<\/p>\n Gallery \/ 9 images<\/p>\n Davide Sorrenti<\/a>\u2019s recently published Journals 1994-1995 not only emphasise his creativity but are notable because the pages \u201cshow a moment in the 1990s that people talk about constantly, but rarely understand from the inside. These pages are the inside\u201d. So stated Francesca Sorrenti, mother of the late photographer and streetwear hustler. Sorrenti was a rangy New York kid who covered every surface of the city with stickers, but his untimely passing at the age of 20 (from a lifelong genetic blood disorder compounded by heroin use) became part of a wider panic around fashion\u2019s hard drug-infused aesthetic and lifestyle. The journals are an on-the-ground look at an era we can\u2019t get enough of.<\/p>\n Read the full story here<\/a> on Dazed.<\/p>\n Daniel Arnold, You Are What You Do<\/p>\n Gallery \/ 15 images<\/p>\n \u201cAlthough there is gravity in my trudge through the world,\u201d American photographer Daniel Arnold<\/a> told Dazed, \u201ca lot of it is flippant and very casual and kind of fun.\u201d In his landscape-format monograph, typically ideosynchratic moments channel \u201csnap storytelling\u201d with his own wry slant. Those moments include affection on subway cars, someone giving the finger to a helicopter from a balcony, glittering boots on the go at night, and many shared cigarettes. Arnold embraces and reflects back the chaos of New York, never tiring of the thrill photography provides as a medium, saying: \u201cI still feel like I\u2019m new.\u201d<\/p>\n Read the full story here<\/a> on Dazed.<\/p>\n Nan Goldin, This Will Not End Well<\/p>\n Gallery \/ 44 images<\/p>\n Once again, Nan Goldin<\/a> moved and mesmerised audiences with This Will Not End Well at Pirelli HangarBicocca in Milan (an exhibition which previously circulated in Stockholm, Amsterdam and Berlin). Held in the colossal former factory space of the tyre brand, the show, which focused on her output as a filmmaker, included her most seminal works, including The Ballad of Sexual Dependency (1981\u20132022), The Other Side (1992-2021), Sisters, Saints, Sibyls (2004\u20132022), and Stendhal Syndrome (2024). One of the curators, Roberta Tenconi, described Goldin\u2019s approach thusly: \u201cThe way she photographs comes from relationships; it\u2019s not about documenting, it\u2019s about emotion and communication.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Read the full story here<\/a> on Dazed.<\/p>\n