Nasty Top 10 2025 / A Must-See List of Art Moments

Our selection of Cultural Moments of the year.

We have reached the end of another year, and Nasty Magazine returns with a customary compilation selected by our Art Editor, Maria Abramenko, of unmissable exhibitions of 2025. A collection of projects, initiatives, and cultural acts that too often went unnoticed because they disturb, because they refuse to bow to the logic of the ordinary. The spirit of this selection is radically unconventional: a mapping of the creative minds who chose to assert their presence in a disruptive manner, balancing audacity and transgression. We do not seek the mainstream, the lukewarm, the complacent whisper. We are drawn to what leaves a mark on the skin, that digs deep, that tears away the surface to reveal the true body of art: brutal, unsettling, untamed. For those who missed it, now is the moment to catch up and let yourself be swept by that rebellious energy of art, a reminder that aesthetic experience is also about transgression and resistance.

1. “Propaganda” by Jenna Marvin at Transfo – Emmaüs Solidarité

At Transfo – Emmaüs Solidarité, Paris (5 December 2025 – 7 February 2026), PROPAGANDA stands out as Jenna Marvin’s latest manifesto, an intersection of performance, movement, and political tension. It interrogates power structures through the body, with choreography and visual language serving as tools of dissent and critical reflection. A series of performances and associated cultural events enriched the program. PROPAGANDA positions itself as a radical queer intervention, challenging cis-heteronormative dominance and contemporary patriarchal systems through both spectacle and subtle disruption.

2. Victor Man ‘The Absence That We Are’ At David Zwirner, London

At David Zwirner, London, from 18 September to 31 October 2025, Victor Man’s The Absence That We Are presented a suite of paintings, canvases from which forms and figures seem to suspend between memory and forgetting. Man cultivates a mood of quiet intensity — forms appear from shadowed grounds, building an atmosphere of ambiguity, a taste of pleasant yet discomforting perturbation. In eschewing narrative clarity, the works frame painting itself as a space for thought and sensation, where silence and omission become as charged as presence. This exhibition reaffirmed Man’s work as one of our more compelling engagements with existential interiority in contemporary art.

3 ‘Everything is true – Nothing is permitted’ curated by Kendell Geers at Brutus Space in Rotterdam

The group exhibition curated by Kendell Geers positioned art as a space of confrontation rather than reassurance. Presented at Brutus Space in Rotterdam, between 8 March – 15 June 2025, it showed artworks that openly question authority, ideology, and the fragile notion of truth in contemporary society. Installed inside the raw industrial architecture of Brutus, the exhibition rejects neutrality and comfort, instead embracing provocation, dissent, and ethical ambiguity. The title itself becomes a commentary on the contemporary condition: when everything claims to be true, nothing can be trusted.

4. C280: Machine of Loving Grace by Jesse Draxler at Art Basel Miami

In C280: Machine of Loving Grace, Jesse Draxler transformed a Mercedes-Benz into a symbolic object charged with emotional and cultural meaning. The installation, presented at Art Basel Miami, 3 – 6 December 2025, reflects on humanity’s relationship with machines, movement, and desire, turning a familiar vehicle into a sculptural presence. Blending visual art, sound, and spatial intervention, the work invites viewers to consider technology not as neutral, but as something deeply intertwined with intimacy, control, and identity.

installation photos courtesy of Steve Yancar
installation photos courtesy of Steve Yancar
installation photos courtesy of Steve Yancar

5. Gian Maria Tosatti : ‘Paradiso’ at At Ex Magazzini Raccordati, Milan

From March 22 to April 11, 2025 at Ex Magazzini Raccordati, Milan, Paradiso unfolds as a silent yet loud meditation on absence, memory, and collective identity. Gian Maria Tosatti reimagined the abandoned urban spaces, transforming them into emotional environments. Light, architecture, and symbolism work together to evoke a sense of suspended time. Rather than offering a narrative, the installation invites viewers into a state of reflection, confronting the invisible traces of social, political, and historical transformation embedded in the city itself.

6. ‘Khorós’ by Berlinde De Bruyckere at BOZAR, Brusselles

From 21 February to 31 August 2025, Berlinde De Bruyckere presented a sculptural universe, where the body emerges as both subject and metaphor. Khorós, installed within the monumental spaces of BOZAR, brought together works that reflect on suffering, care, metamorphosis, and endurance. De Bruyckere’s practice draws from mythology, literature, and lived experience, yet resists fixed interpretation. Her sculptures feel simultaneously intimate and monumental, fragile and resolute. Rather than staging a retrospective, Khorós operates as a collective voice, a layered meditation on human vulnerability that unfolds through material, gesture, and silence. The exhibition invites slow looking, emotional engagement, and a willingness to confront discomfort as a fundamental aspect of empathy.

Berlinde De Bruyckere, Invisible Love, 2011 (detail), 2011, wax, wood, leather, wool, rope, horsehair, linen, iron, polyurethane, epoxy. Private Collection Buggenhout, Ghent Photo: Mirjam Devriendt
Berlinde De Bruyckere, Into One-another I to P.P.P., 2010– 2011, 2011, wax, wood, glass, iron, epoxy. Iself Collection Photo: Mirjam Devriendt
Berlinde De Bruyckere, Invisible Beauty, 2011, 2011, wax, wood, rope, horsehair, leather, iron, epoxy. Private Collection Buggenhout, Ghent Photo: Mirjam Devriendt

7. Tobias Spichtig : ‘Heavy Mental’ at Galerie Peter Kilchmann

Galerie Peter Kilchmann presented Heavy Mental (13 June – 25 July 2025), an introspective and deep exploration of identity, tension, and subcultural memory. Tobias Spichtig’s figures appear suspended between vulnerability and defiance. They operate as emotional triggers, shaping the atmosphere of the exhibition. Sharp lines and dark Gothic undertones create a complete sense of psychological density, where introspection becomes physical, and emotional weight takes form. Rather than offering clear narratives, Spichtig leaves space for ambiguity, allowing viewers to project their own states of mind onto these haunting, unstable presences.

8. ‘Sex and Politics’ at Bastille Design Centre

Between 13 – 16 November 2025, at Bastille Design Centre, Paris, France, Sex and Politics stands out as a reflection on how the body becomes a terrain of power, control, and rebellion. Through photography and visual art, the curators brought together Danila Tkachenko and Slavica Veselinović, artists whose work confronts censorship, ideology, and social norms. Desire and politics are shown not as separate forces, but as deeply intertwined structures that shape personal identity and collective narratives. The result is a visually striking and intellectually charged exploration of freedom and resistance.

Santiago Sierra, Los Penetrados / The Penetrated, 2008 — Last act: 10 Black men penetrating 10 white men
Arsen Savadov, Fashion at The Graveyard, 1997

9. HELMUT LANG. Séance de travail 1986–2005 at the MAK in Vienna

At the MAK – Museum of Applied Arts in Vienna (10 December 2025 – 3 May 2026), this exhibition strips back the myth of Helmut Lang the brand to reveal the relentless logic of Helmut Lang the thinker. Distancing itself from conventional fashion retrospectives, the show authentically presents the designer’s formative years between 1986 and 2005, revealing how his experiments with runway format, space, and visual communication anticipated contemporary artistic approaches. Works and archival materials are positioned to suggest a practice rooted in questioning rather than display — a reminder that Lang’s legacy persists not in nostalgia, but in the way we conceive of clothing and identity as cultural constructs.

MAK Exhibition View, 2025 / Chapter Séance de Travail HELMUT LANG. SÉANCE DE TRAVAIL 1986–2005 / Excerpts from the MAK Helmut Lang Archive MAK Exhibition Hall © kunst-dokumentation.com/MAK
MAK Exhibition View, 2025 / Chapter Media & Cultural Presence HELMUT LANG. SÉANCE DE TRAVAIL 1986–2005 / Excerpts from the MAK Helmut Lang Archive MAK Exhibition Hall © kunst-dokumentation.com/MAK
MAK Exhibition View, 2025 / Chapter Media & Cultural Presence HELMUT LANG. SÉANCE DE TRAVAIL 1986–2005 / Excerpts from the MAK Helmut Lang Archive MAK Exhibition Hall © kunst-dokumentation.com/MAK

10. Juergen Teller ‘You Are Invited ’ At Onassis Ready, Athens, Greece

This large-scale exhibition offers an uncompromising look at Juergen Teller’s photographic practice across decades. At Onassis Ready, Athens, Greece (19 October – 30 December 2025), it spans fashion, portraiture, and deeply personal imagery. The show does not rely on chronology or polish; instead, it embraces imperfection, irony, and vulnerability. Installed in an industrial space, the exhibition dismantles the traditional separation between the sacred and the banal, presenting photography as a raw, human, and often uncomfortable form of truth-telling.

Nasty Top 10 2025 / A Must-See List of Art Moments

Credits:

Editor: Maria Abramenko / @mariabramenko
Junior Editor: Annalisa Fabbrucci / @annalisa_fabbrucci

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