This paper takes as its departure point French philosopher and art historian Georges Didi-Huberman’s recent text Aperçues (2018). Clearly forsaking art-historical literary conventions, Aperçues is composed completely of fragments. Dated, but not organised chronologically, Didi-Huberman is drawing on a long literary history of essayistic writing that reaches back to Michel de Montaigne. With this history of experimental forms of writing in mind, this essay will argue that Didi-Huberman’s decision to write in fragmentary form signals a broader shift in art-historical writing: the turn to the ‘I’, or loosely demarcated autobiographical practices. This is not, however, a simplistic or uncomplicated return to the humanist subject. Instead, drawing from Roland Barthes’ 1971 exhumation of the author in Sade, Fourier, Loyola, the author is amicable. To be amicable is to demonstrate goodwill and a sense of intimacy with the reader. It also suggests the traditional neutral and rational subject is bracketed in favor of a friendly conviviality. Examining recent forms of art writing by Michael Ann Holly, T.J. Clark, and Didi-Huberman, this essay discusses the notion of the amical author as a possible trope for experimental art writing practices, where the subject returns, albeit in a fragmented and split condition.