“So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.” —F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, 1925
Dare I say a lot has changed since we last spoke, but the head-spinning acceleration of the twenty-first century makes time difficult to gauge. Throw in the American election cycle, and a day feels like a year, and a week, a century. The art world, for its part, awoke from a summer slumber, with New York, London and Paris hosting their respective art weeks. Jeffrey Deitch reunited with his Post-Human theme in Los Angeles, and every time AI and art is discussed at a dinner party, there is awkward silence and downcast eyes, betraying the many who have guiltily sampled. This is 2024-25 for you.
In an era where the digital realm overtakes the cognitive landscape and humanity seems on the brink of a renaissance, the paradox of futurism intertwined with remnants of the past remains more alive than ever. This has been on our minds this year, and our Winter issue tackles this head on. Artists like Amanda Ba and Clayton Schiff dive into the contradiction, crafting visions where clarity and obscurity dance between what is and what was. Anthony Cudahy’s latest works, a vivid dialogue between memory and foresight, capture this sentiment beautifully. Through his depictions, we see figures that hover like ethereal spirits—tethered to history yet yearning for the uncharted future. His brushstrokes whisper a bygone era, refracted through the prism of contemporary consciousness in eerie yet familiar resonance. Anastasia Bay, a painter of art historical origins and a contemporary voice, conceived her latest work as an opera, with music and costumes that evoke a timelessness of Black Mountain College-era collaborative performances between sound, sight and movement.
And then we look at the unique relationship of 30 years of graffiti in London through the friendship and bond of 10FOOT, TOX and FUME. Graffiti is the earliest form of art; the act of writing on walls is literally as old as humanity itself. It’s as if these vibrant strokes and cryptic tags are timeless tales inscribed on the canvas of urban sprawl, reminiscent of how ancient hieroglyphs speak of long-gone civilizations. The pulsating rawness of these street expressions reminds us that, no matter how futuristic our milieu becomes, our narratives are grounded in origins, rebellion, and the timeless spirit of dissent.
Then we have the Guerrilla Girls, whose fierce activism and unapologetic critique of the art world’s patriarchal structures serve as a powerful reminder that progress isn’t linear. They wield anonymity like a paintbrush, crafting stark, direct statements in an eloquent blend of satire and activism. They remind us that the battle for gender and racial equality is far from over, even as we step into a world augmented with every form of technology.
In a world where big tech, apps, and AI cater to your every move, impulse, or need, art still invites you to participate and explore what this world means to you—to challenge yourself and be challenged. One of the things about Juxtapoz is that we like to create a wild mash-up of temporal streams, but find a commonality where artists are sharing ideas in different ways. This issue echoes the wisdom of hindsight while gazing eagerly toward the horizon. In a world so undeniably futuristic, where algorithms write symphonies and artificial intelligence paints landscapes, there lies an intrinsic yearning to anchor our identities amidst the haze of history. To step forward, sometimes, we must first look back—cherishing the chaos and clarity of our origins while sewing them into the fabric of tomorrow. —Evan Pricco
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Featured artists in WINTER 2025: Clayton Schiff, Amanda Ba, Anthony Cudahy, 10FOOT, TOX, FUME, Anastasia Bay, Gabriela Ruiz, Shyama Golden, Guerrilla Girls, Rachel Gregor, Morteza Khakshoor, Tim Conlon, Kyndacee Harris, Raquel Van Haver, Christian Quin Newell, the Fine Arts Work Center and Corita Kent
