In December, we round up a few of the newest art-world "isms." We consider a wave of rough and unruly sculptures that is littering museums, galleries, and disused warehouses worldwide—call it neo-deconstructivism, nonmonumentalism, or the junk esthetic. We meet a new group of artists mixing familiar imagery from news media and pop culture with techniques from graphic design, creating bleak and sinister high-impact works that might be termed Dark Pop.

Also, we profile veteran abstractionist Mary Heilmann, whose bold, fluorescent works are at once hard-edge and painterly. We talk to John Castagno, an expert on artists’ signatures throughout art history and what they reveal. And on the occasion of an exhibition of Lucian Freud’s etchings opening at the Museum of Modern Art next month, we look closely at one of his portraits and how he made it.