Power in our rapidly expanding global art world comes in many forms. There’s creativity which pushes past formal boundaries, influence which can often convince cultural agents to do its bidding, and wealth which, while greasing the wheels of artistic enterprise, is also capable of changing all the iron rules into rubber bands—to quote novelist Ryszard Kapuscinski.

Today, financial power—as expressed in ever-rising multimillion dollar, pound sterling and renminbi sums—remains very much the dominant force in the art world. As Phillips CEO Edward Dolman told Bloomberg in January, the growth of the art world continues apace, even amid a global economic downturn. He and other auction experts have consequently characterized the recent decline in auction sales not as a “correction” but, more optimistically, as a “consolidation.”

Where is that financial power coming from then, you ask? The answer is from a marked increase in the number of high net-worth individuals in Asia. According to economist was Clare McAndrew, the results of the artnet and China Association of Auctioneers (CAA) annual report are telling: “The Asia Pacific region is hugely important for the art market, and now it’s the biggest center of high net worth wealth in the world.” Notably, this is the principal reason artnet News has selected the region as this year’s area of Focus for it’s 2016 list of artnet Titans.

Taken together, artnet’s roundup of the Titans of the art world—a list made up of artists, patrons, curators, museum directors, educators, and auction house professionals—are a geographically diverse but remarkably inventive lot. Separately, these notables exhibit a penchant for innovative thinking within their respective professional arenas.

The hundred names on this once-in-a-season power list make one thing clear above all: They are each major players in an increasingly integrated if far-flung art world.

67. Gerhard Richter
Nationality: Germany
Category: Artist
Single Line Identifier: According to his colleagues (and a Vanity Fair straw poll conducted among one hundred of the planet’s “art worthies”), the painter is the artistic genius of our age.
Quote: Every now and then—actually no, always—there are people who will have real feelings for [my art]. That’s why it’s difficult when I go to the home of a collector and then next to my work in a room hangs some heinous artwork and I think to myself “How can the man do that?”

68. Thaddaeus Ropac
Nationality: Austria
Category: Art Dealer
Single Line Identifier: Once called “the Prince of Paris,” the gallerist now has spaces in Salzburg, Paris, and London.
Quote: “We don’t sell art, we place art.”

69. Aby Rosen
Nationality: US
Category: Patron
Single Line Identifier: A New York real estate mogul, Rosen is a major art collector and auction house presence.
Quote: “I love art, period.”

70. Lorenzo Rudolf
Nationality: Switzerland
Category: Art Fair Director
Single Line Identifier: An art fair veteran, Rudolf served as the director of Art Basel from 1991 to 2000, helped initiate Art Basel’s expansion to Miami in 2002 and is currently the founder and president of Art Stage Singapore and Art Stage Jakarta (his wife, Maria Elena Rudolf, is vice president of Art Stage Singapore).
Quote: “A consequence of globalization is that we have increasingly similar values all over the world. It is no longer education that gives you the highest standing; today, it is wealth, a ‘value’ that is all over the world not dependent on a specific language or culture.”

71. Beatrix Ruf
Nationality: Germany
Category: Museum Director
Single Line Identifier: Power curator and a tastemaker, the current Director of the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam is known for having jump-started the careers of a number of internationally known artists.
Quote: “Good artists are always the ones that may not have a vision into the future, but who are able to condense thinking about the contemporary reality.”

72. Don and Mera Rubell
Nationality: US
Category: Patrons
Single Line Identifier: Emerging artist patrons and founders The Rubell Foundation.
Quote: “We never buy just one single work by an artist because we are all about telling a story. How do you tell a story with just one work?”

73. Nicholas Serota
Nationality: UK
Category: Museum Director
Single Line Identifier: The head of Britain’s four Tate museums and galleries for three decades recently announced his departure to become the next chairman of The Arts Council England.
Quote: “When I go, the role [of Director of Tate] itself will not change. The trustees are absolutely committed to the idea of eventually appointing someone with a curatorial background who will drive the public-service ethos of the institution rather than just run it.”

74. Jack Shainman
Nationality: US
Category: Art Dealer
Single Line Identifier: The New York gallerist has a found a durable global niche by showing African American and African artists while building a massive Kunsthalle in upstate New York.
Quote: “I consistently advocate for my artists, and it can be years before the reward or acclaim comes.”

75. Cindy Sherman
Nationality: US
Category: Artist
Single Line Identifier: The artist’s photographic acts of self-presentation have won most every artistic laurel, while recasting her medium very much in her own likeness
Quote: “When I first started this series, I thought ‘God, this is the last time I do this.’ I’m so sick of using myself, how much more can I try to change myself?”

76. Yemisi Shyllon
Nationality: Nigeria
Category: Patron
Single Line Identifier: The Yoruba Prince is the founder of the Omooba Yemisi Adedoyin Shyllon Art Foundation, which houses what many estimate to be largest art collection in Africa.
Quote: “It is a glorious obsession. It goes from interest to passion and passion to obsession until you are buying artwork at every auction and you have to build new storage spaces just to house your art collection.”

77. Victoria Siddall
Nationality: UK
Category: Art Fair Director
Single Line Identifier: Director of Frieze art fairs.
Quote: “We’re not going to rush into just doing lots and lots of art fairs. If we did it, it would be because we could do something really, really fantastic—different than anything else that exists.”

78. Stefan Simchowitz
Nationality: South Africa
Category: Art Dealer/Advisor
Single Line Identifier: Publicity-hungry advisor, dealer, flipper, and advocate for young artists has emerged as a figure of both admiration and loathing
Quote: “All you have is essentially fake markets with cool people in the VIP section of the nightclub being able to order the champagne and everyone else has to wait outside in the freezing cold. That’s bullshit!”

79. Franklin Sirmans
Nationality: US
Category: Museum Director
Single Line Identifier: Head of the Miami’s Perez Art Museum from whom art overs and the public at large are expecting great things
Quote: “The museum in the twenty-first century is not the museum of the twentieth. Can we bridge our viewers between those times? I think, yes!”

80. Tad Smith
Nationality: US
Category: Auction House
Single Line Identifier: The ex-Madison Square Garden CEO became the head of Sotheby’s in 2015, to the surprise of some art dealers
Quote: “All of our clients are stepping up to buy things they really want that are high quality items that are fresh. They are being more careful on where they spend and focusing on what they really want rather than the things they might have wanted when they felt a little more flush.”

81. Marc Spiegler
Nationality: US
Category: Art Fair Director
Single Line Identifier: The director of Art Basel, the world’s most dominant art fair organization
Quote: “Art Basel does not adapt to changes in the market, nor do we change for the sake of innovation.”

82. Monika Sprüth and Philomene Magers
Nationality: Germany
Category: Art Dealers
Single Line Identifier: Art world feminists who have opened galleries in Cologne, Berlin, London and, most recently, Los Angeles
Quote (Monika): “When you look at the real power, the financial power in the art world, there’s still a difference between the male and female artists.”

83. Hito Steyerl
Nationality: Germany
Category: Artist
Single Line Identifier: The artist-theorist’s hybrid practice explores surveillance, militarization and, above all, the circulation of images in the post-internet world; it has been on view most recently at the Reina Sofia, Madrid, and MOCA Los Angeles/
Quote: “At the moments there are trillions of bits of data circulating around the internet which we have no access to… we have entered a period of the post-human documentary. I think there’s going to be a huge period of adjustment to this situation.”

84. Adam Szymczyk
Nationality: Poland
Category: Curator
Single Line Identifier: The ex-Director and Chief Curator at Kunsthalle Basel is the Artistic Director of the upcoming Documenta 14—due to take place in both Kassel, Germany, and Athens, Greece
Quote: “The most interesting approach to Documenta consists, in my opinion, of resolving the question of how to fill the vessel with contents that represent a far-sighted response to the current situation in the arts, thus making a significant statement in contemporary culture, society and politics comparable in its impact to the first Documenta.”

85. Budi Tek
Nationality: China/Indonesia
Category: Patron
Single Line Identifier: Patron and Founder of Yuz Museums in Jakarta and Shanghai
Quote: “We want to tell the world that the Yuz Museum places the bar very high.”

86. Philip Tinari
Nationality: US
Category: Museum Director
Single Line Identifier: Director of the Ullens Center for Contemporary Art (UCCA) in Beijing
Quote: “Ten years ago, there were two galleries in Beijing and maybe two museums showing contemporary art in all of China. Now, even if half of it disappeared, it would be ten times what it was.”

87. Francesca von Habsburg
Nationality: Austria
Category: Patron
Single Line Identifier: Founder of Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary (TBA21), von Habsburg is organizing, among a growing number of global projects, the upcoming “Oceans Pavilion” for 57th Venice Biennale.
Quote: “Artists have been historically the voice of reason, and today they are the ones who defy traditional market-driven ambitions to instead focus on the urgent issues of our time in a way that empowers people, and inspires them to join the movement.”

88. Sheena Wagstaff
Nationality: UK
Category: Museum Director
Single Line Identifier: Chair of Modern and Contemporary Art at Metropolitan Museum and head of Met Breuer
Quote: “This is the moment for the Met to ask: whither modern and contemporary? How do we go forward into the future?”

89. Kara Walker
Nationality: US
Category: Artist
Single Line Identifier: The Tepper Chair at Rutgers University’s Mason Gross School of the Arts and McCarthur “genius” grant recipient has provided complex discussion of race with a durable visual language
Quote: “There’s a very American set of caricatures who are informative about the ideas, ideals, mistakes, and goals of this experiment that the new world represents—the experiment that has gone wrong.”

90. Alice Walton
Nationality: US
Category: Patron
Single Line Identifier: The world’s richest woman ($33.2 billion) founded the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in 2011, and recently announced plans to build a new contemporary art museum in her hometown of Bentonville, Arkansas.
Quote: “Art wasn’t accessible to me as a child and I hope [the Crystal Bridges Museum] changes this for people throughout this region.”

91. Adam Weinberg
Nationality: US
Category: Museum Director
Single Line Identifier: The Alice Pratt Brown Director of the Whitney Museum of American Art, Weinberg has solidified the standing of the downtown Whitney as New York’s most important contemporary museum.
Quote: “The Whitney’s role remains the same as it was at its founding: to support and inspire the artists of our time and present the best of 20th- and 21st-century American art.”

92. Ai Weiwei
Nationality: China
Category: Artist
Single Line Identifier: Dubbed “China’s most dangerous man” by Smithsonian Magazine, Ai has spent the last few years in Europe making work related to the refugee crisis.
Quote: “The artist is someone who is involved, but detached at the same time. We are parallel to the conditions and we try to examine and learn from them.”

93. Iwan and Manuela Wirth
Nationality: Swiss
Category: Art Dealers
Single Line Identifier: The art world’s most powerful couple added to their galleries in New York, London, Zurich and Somerset by opening a mammoth new arts complex in downtown Los Angeles together with partner Paul Schimmel.
Quote: “It’s not so much that we chose to work with emerging artists—I’d love to have worked with Gerhard Richter but those who were interested in us were the more complex, less commercial artists.”

94. Kelly Ying and David Chau
Nationality: China
Category: Patrons
Single Line Identifier: Chau set up a $32-million art investment fund when he was just 21, and is the backer of Leo Xu Projects and Simon Wang’s Antenna Space; Ying is the co-founder, with Chau, of Art021, Shanghai’s newest art fair.
Quote (Kelly): “My aim is to be a comprehensive collector, so I pay a lot of attention to both emerging and established artists.”

95. Liu Yiqian
Nationality: China
Category: Patron
Single Line Identifier: A taxi-driver turned billionaire, Liu is the Founder of the Long Museum, which has two branches in Shanghai and another planned for Chonqing. Among China’s most successful art investors, Liu spent $170 million to buy a Modigliani painting in an auction at Christie’s on November 2016, one of the highest prices ever paid for an artwork at an auction.
Quote: “When there are many bidders at auction, it proves the work is widely recognized and must be a good one.”

96. Anita and Poju Zabludowicz
Nationality: UK
Category: Patrons
Single Line Identifier: The Zabludowicz Collection and Daata Editions
Quote: “You want not just to acquire what the artists make, but build a relationship with them. Their work becomes part of your life.”

97. Dai Zhikang
Nationality: China
Category: Patron
Single Line Identifier: The Chinese real estate impresario made the decision this year to get out of property investment and into investing in art.
Quote: “The size of the art market could soon catch up with the property sector.”

98. Dasha Zhukova
Nationality: Russia
Category: Patron
Single Line Identifier: The Founder—together with husband Roman Abramovich— of the Garage Museum of Contemporary Art, she is presently at work on New Holland, a new 19-acre cultural complex set on an artificial island in Saint Petersburg.
Quote: “We are very modern. We want to focus on the generation that is shaping Russia’s future.”

99. David Zwirner
Nationality: Germany
Category: Art Dealer
Single Line Identifier: The world’s most powerful dealer (or runner-up if you pip Larry Gagosian), Zwirner has built a New York and London gallery empire that is getting a Hong Kong addition in 2017.
Quote: “One of the reasons there’s so much talk about money is that it’s so much easier to talk about than the art.”

100. Zhao Xu
Nationality: China
Category: Auction House
Single Line Identifier: Chairman of Beijing Poly International Auction, the world’s third bigest auction house (after Christie’s and Sotheby’s) and China’s largest.
Quote: “We are like the Communist Party, and Sotheby’s and Christie’s are like the Kuomintang. They have many more resources overseas, but we have the people’s faith.”