The end of the 2025 brought the usual array of photo collections looking back on the year. But the end of 2025 also meant we have reached the quarter-way mark of the 21st century, and a number of publications took the occasion to single out images that told the story of the era. The photos look back on everything form 9/11 and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to the catastrophic consequences of Hurricane Katrina, the rise of the selfie, the emergence of China as an economic power, the introduction of the iPhone, the force of the Black Lives Matter movement and the presidencies of Donald Trump. One site, Cultured, took a different approach and had photographers share photos they thought of as defining.

   Thursday, January 22: Jasper Johns | Between the Clock and the Bed at Gagosian Between the Clock and the Bed—an exhibition of historic works by Jasper Johns at Gagosian in partnership with Castelli Gallery—surveys the crosshatch paintings and drawings that dominated his practice from 1973 to 1983 and have reverberated across his subsequent production.  Commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of this body of work’s debut at Castelli Gallery in 1976, this ...