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artnet Titans: The Most Powerful People in the Art World, Part II
Power in our rapidly expanding global art world comes in many forms.
Artnet News
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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.
HH Sheikha Hoor, President of the Sharjah Foundation, photographed at the Danieli Hotel, Venice during the 53rd International Art Biennale. © Alex Maguire. Courtesy of Sharjah Art Foundation.
34. Sheikha Hoor Al-Qasimi
Nationality: United Arab Emirates
Category: Curator/Patron
Single Line Identifier: President and director of the Sharjah Art Foundation and Director of Sharjah Biennial.
Quote: “You don’t start a debate by offending someone. You slowly push the boundaries.”
Dakis Joannou at the opening of the Barney’s New York Window installation inspired by DESTE Fashion Collection. ©Patrick McMullan. Courtesy of Jimi Celeste/PatrickMcMullan.com.
35. Dakis Joannou
Nationality: Greece
Category: Patron
Single Line Identifier: Founder of the DESTE Foundation and the owner of the ultimate unapologetic mogul’s toy—a Jeff Koons-decorated yacht named “Guilty.”
Quote: “My collection is basically about life, not about art history or art theory.”
Rashid Johnson 2013 Whitney Gala to Honor Ed Ruscha supported by Louis Vuiton, October, 23, 2013. © Patrick McMullan. Photo by Nicholas Hunt/PatrickMcMullan.com
36. Rashid Johnson
Nationality: US
Category: Artist
Single Line Identifier: The vice-chair of Performa, who has an excellent show on at Hauser & Wirth’s 18 Street space, is only the second artist to ever serve on the board of trustees of the Guggenheim Museum (Founding director, Baroness Hilla von Rebay was the first).
Quote: “Starting with my first trip as an adult to West Africa, I sort of came to the realization that I am not African.”
Jay Jopling poses outside the new White Cube gallery in Bermondsey on October 11, 2011 in London, England. Photo by Oli Scarff/Getty Images.
37. Jay Jopling
Nationality: UK
Category: Art Dealer
Single Line Identifier: Founder of White Cube gallery empire, which includes spaces in London and Hong Kong.
Quote: “So many galleries encourage the art to chase the money; it’s much more interesting when it’s the other way round.”
Sean Kelly at the preview of the 2013 Armory Show. ©Patrick McMullan. Photo – Patrick McMullan/PatrickMcMullan.com.
38. Sean Kelly
Nationality: US (UK-born)
Category: Art Dealer
Single Line Identifier: The New York gallerist boasts a roster of renowned international artists, including Marina Abramović and the estate of Robert Mapplethorpe.
Quote: “I started with nothing. I didn’t have any family money. I made a dollar, spent ninety-nine cents and paid my artists.”
Kasper Konig at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, NYC. October 29, 2009. © Patrick McMullan. Photo- Billy Farrell/PatrickMcMullan.com.
39. Kasper König
Nationality: German
Category: Curator
Single Line Identifier: Berlin-based curator and artistic director of the 2017 Skulptur Projekte in Münster.
Quote: “Organizing exhibitions is a making aware, an act that requires a special design. It’s what you don’t do – not what you do. What you do emerges from the work.”
Jeff Koons presents a new exhibition “Popeye Series” at the Serpentine Gallery on June 30, 2009 in London, England. Photo by Dan Kitwood/Getty Images.
40. Jeff Koons
Nationality: US
Category: Artist
Single Line Identifier: The world’s most expensive living artist (his Balloon Dog (Orange) sold for $58.4 million at a Christie’s in 2013).
Quote: “I’ve always called for art where criticality is gone.”
Anish Kapoor at the Inaugural Dinner and Awards Presentation of the Louise T Blouin Foundation, May 2, 2005. ©Patrick McMullan. Photo- Patrick McMullan/PM.
41. Anish Kapoor
Nationality: UK
Category: Artist
Single Line Identifier: Arguably, Britain’s greatest sculptor, Kapoor has courted controversy recently for displaying work resembling female anatomy and acquiring a monopoly on the nanopaint Vantablack.
Quote: “We live, of course, in a world of objects. And we measure ourselves and our whole environment through the objects we interact with. Sculpture can question or kind of pose problems in this complex relationship that we have with objects.”
Udo Kittelmann at a press conference for the ‘Two By Two’ exhibition at Hamburger Bahnhof on March 5, 2015 in Berlin, Germany. Photo by Christian Marquardt/Getty Images.
42. Udo Kittelmann
Nationality: Germany
Category: Museum Director
Single Line Identifier: Director of the Nationalgalerie in Berlin, who oversees six museums, among them the Alte Nationalgalerie and the Hamburger Banhof.
Quote: “If I didn’t continue to curate—even now that I have a job that oversees six museums—I would stop breathing. The strong relationship with artists gives me the energy to take on all the business that I have to do.”
Monica Manzutto, Los Angeles, CA. July 14, 2011. ©Patrick McMullan. Photo – Mike Gardner/PatrickMcMullan.com.
43. José Kuri and Mónica Manzutto
Nationality: Mexico
Category: Art Dealers
Single Line Identifier: Founders Kurimanzutto, which began with no fixed address and grew into Latin America’s premiere art gallery.
Quote: (Mónica Manzutto) “Not having a space was very important. The gallery was about all these friends, together.”
Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama in Hong Kong. Photo by Philippe Lopez/AFP/Getty Images.
44. Yayoi Kusama
Nationality: Japan
Category: Artist
Single Line Identifier: The inventor of the mirrored polka dot installation, Kusama has become, nearly despite herself, art’s biggest Instagram sensation.
Quote: “Polka dots symbolize disease.”
Marta Kuzma at Artists Space, NYC, November 30, 2006. ©Patrick McMullan. Photo- Stephanie Halmos/PatrickMcMullan.com.
45. Marta Kuzma
Nationality: US
Category: Educator
Single Line Identifier: The ex-vice chancellor and rector of Sweden’s Royal Institute of Art, Kuzma is the first woman appointed to be the Dean of the prestigious Yale School of Art.
Quote: “In this age of creative capitalism, art and the artist are evolving amid new typologies of production and productivity, with the artist entering into the culture of entrepreneurship and management, with the ‘artwork’ being everywhere and nowhere at the same time, and with the international social network behaving as artistic material in its own right.”
Dominique Levy speaks at Florence Gould Hall on March 4, 2015 in New York City. Photo by Grant Lamos IV/Getty Images.
46. Dominique Levy
Nationality: Swiss
Category: Art Dealer
Single Line Identifier: A potent force in the auction market, the gallerist has spaces in New York, London and Geneva.
Quote: “I won’t go as far as to say I curate the bowl of chocolate, but….”
Nicholas Logsdail during the press preview of “Ai Weiwei Disposition,” an exhibition part of the 55th International Art Exhibition on May 28, 2013 in Venice, Italy. Photo by Marco Secchi/Getty Images.
47. Nicholas Logsdail
Nationality: UK
Category: Art Dealer
Single Line Identifier: The established dealer has been in business nearly fifty years and now has galleries in London, Milan, and New York.
Quote: “To make [an art fair] stand interesting, there are combination of factors: You have make a stand attractive and appealing without it being decorative.”
Eugenio Lopez. Broad Museum Gala Opening, Los Angeles, CA. September 17, 2015. Photo – David Crotty/PatrickMcMullan.com.
48. Eugenio López
Nationality: Mexico
Category: Patron
Single Line Identifier: The collector founded the Museo Júmex in 2013, home to the largest private art collection in Latin America.
Quote: “Art allows me to understand how the world can be seen, and how it can be re-imagined by artists. Collecting allows me to delve into the complexity of this process, and most of all, to share with other people artworks by different artists.”
Courtesy of Wikipedia.com.
49. Rick Lowe
Nationality: US
Category: Artist
Single Line Identifier: The original outside-the-box artist-thinker who inspired fellow artists Mark Bradford and Theaster Gates, the 2014 McCarthur Fellow has turned what was once considered social work into “social sculpture” in cities like Houston, New Orleans, Los Angeles, and Philadelphia.
Quote: “We don’t need people showing us what’s happening. We know what’s happening. We need solutions. If you’re an artist and you’re creative, why can’t you create a solution?”
Glenn D. Lowry attends the WSJ. Magazine 2015 Innovator Awards at the Museum of Modern Art on November 4, 2015 in New York City. Photo by Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images.
50. Glenn D. Lowry
Nationality: US
Category: Museum Director
Single Line Identifier: Director of New York’s continually expanding Museum of Modern Art.
Quote: “If one’s tenure boils down to a construction program then something fundamental has been missed. And what I think is essential is the collection, the programs and the people.”
Christine Macel, December 02, 2010. ©Patrick McMullan. Photo – Patrick McMullan/PatrickMcMullan.com.
51. Christine Macel
Nationality: France
Category: Curator
Single Line Identifier: Chief curator of Paris’s Centre Pompidou and artistic director of the 2017 Venice Biennale.
Quote: “I think there were two moments for me[which led my becoming a curator]: The first was attending the opening of the Centre Pompidou as a child… the second was when I realized that art was an activity where you were allowed to do things which weren’t permitted in ‘normal’ life.”
Yusaku Maezawa. Image ©Yusaku Maezawa.
52. Yusaku Maezawa
Nationality: Japan
Category: Patron
Single Line Identifier: The fashion mogul dropped $98 million at two consecutive sales in May, making him the hero of New York’s spring auctions.
Quote: “I received a lot of street culture influence. And as a show of gratitude and thanks I decided to go all out and purchase (making the winning bid) on the best art piece (of Basquiat)—who also rose up from the streets. I hope to display it somewhere in Japan where everyone can look at it up close to their heart’s content.”
Matthew Marks at Art Dealers Association of America’s Art Show Gala to Benefit Henry Street Settlement. February 18, 2004. ©Patrick McMullan. Photo- Billy Farrell/PatrickMcMullan.com.
53. Matthew Marks
Nationality: US
Category: Art Dealer
Single Line Identifier: The dealer most responsible for Chelsea becoming an art neighborhood, Marks has six spaces between New York and Los Angeles and loads of first-rate art with which to fill them.
Quote: “Almost all of my artists showed with somebody else before they came to me. So, obviously, they left because, wherever they were, that place was not doing what they were supposed to do.”
Kerry James Marshall. Courtesy of Flickr.com
54. Kerry James Marshall
Nationality: US
Category: Artist
Single Line Identifier: The Chicago-based artist has a 70-plus painting retrospective of his work traveling the country presently—from the MCA Chicago to the Met Breuer (October) to the MCA Los Angeles.
Quote: “I had gone into art school expressly with the idea of learning how to paint. I was not prepared to abandon that pursuit just because it wasn’t the popular thing to do at that time.”
Leonid Mikhelson. Photo from Wikipedia.com.
55. Leonid Mikhelson
Nationality: Russia
Category: Patron
Single Line Identifier: The richest man in Russia ($14 billion) and founder of the V-A-C Foundation, he is currently erecting a Renzo Piano-designed museum on the banks of the Moskva river.
Quote: “Now I cannot even imagine myself being in a room or an office without any art on the wall… I remember the Soviet Union and the big offices of the time: oak walls and big columns. I am sitting surrounded by [contemporary art]; it changes your attitude, the way you think … it gives you ideas.”
Robert Mnuchin, March 8, 2006. © Patrick McMullan. Photo-Joe Schildhorn/PMcMullan.com.
56. Robert Mnuchin
Nationality: US
Category: Art Dealer
Single Line Identifier: The former Goldman Sachs equity trader and celebrated New York art dealer has a secured reputation for hosting impressive exhibitions, including a recent show of the work of David Hammons.
Quote: “I’m really a collector at heart, who happens to be a dealer. I feel that every dealer should be that way.”
Alberto Mugrabi, David Mugrabi, Peter Brant at The Brant Foundation Study Center, Greenwich, CT. May 10, 2015. ©Patrick McMullan. Photo – Clint Spaulding/PatrickMcMullan.com.
57. Jose, Alberto and David Mugrabi
Nationality: US
Category: Art Dealers
Single Line Identifier: The collecting family owns the single largest hoard of Warhol paintings in the world (nearly one thousand, according to some reports) and runs an obscure private art dealership with auction houses as their most public face.
Quote: (Alberto Mugrabi) “We’re market makers. You can’t have an impact buying one or two pictures per artist. We’re not buying art like Ron Lauder just to put it on a wall. We want inventory.”
Alexandra Munroe, 2011 Skowhegan Awards Dinner. Photo – MARC DIMOV/PatrickMcMullan.com.
58. Alexandra Munroe
Nationality: US
Category: Curator
Single Line Identifier: The senior curator of Asian Art at the Guggenheim, Munroe is currently at work on two major thematic shows of art from China.
Quote: “Like theater, an exhibition should have sadness and happiness: it should move you, make you cry, make you laugh. It’s about creating an optimum environment for an encounter with art and ideas.”
Howard Shaw, David Nahmad, Lazlo Bertes. November, 8, 2012. © Patrick McMullan. Photo -Patrick McMullan/PatrickMcMullan.com.
59. David Nahmad
Nationality: Lebanon
Category: Art Dealer
Single Line Identifier: The head of a prominent family of billionaire art dealers, Nahmad has been accused of hiding a valuable painting by Alberto Modigliani from a Jewish antiques dealer, from whom it was allegedly confiscated during WWII.
Quote: “If it’s proven that this painting is looted by the Nazis, I will give it back.”
Hans Ulrich Obrist at Bavarian National Museum on June 29, 2011. Photo by Sascha Baumann/Getty Images.
60. Hans Ulrich Obrist
Nationality: Switzerland
Category: Curator
Single Line Identifier: Co-director of Serpentine Galleries in London and co-director of inaugural edition Shanghai Project.
Quote: “The role of the curator is always changing…. For myself, curating always starts with the artist, with their practice.”
Courtesy of Wikipedia.com.
61. Trevor Paglen
Nationality: US
Category: Artist
Single Line Identifier: Trained as a geographer and photographer, Paglen makes the invisible visible by documenting the 21st century surveillance state.
Quote: “I’m interested in images that teach us how to see the world that’s around us all of the time.”
Emmanuel Perrotin, December 06, 2008. ©Patrick McMullan. Photo – Nick Hunt/PatrickMcMullan.com.
62. Emmanuel Perrotin
Nationality: France
Category: Art Dealer
Single Line Identifier: The gallerist who helped launch the careers of Damien Hirst and Takashi Murikami has spaces in Paris, New York, and Hong Kong.
Quote: “My dream is to be able to keep my artists and to not feel so much the shadows of someone who wants to take what you have.”
François Pinault. Courtesy of Wikipedia.com.
63. Francois Pinault
Nationality: France
Category: Patron
Single Line Identifier: The founder of the Pinault Collection, the luxury goods magnate and owner of Christie’s is soon to open “The Pinault Collection, Bourse de Commerce” in Les Halles, Paris.
Quote: “As André Malraux said, ‘Art is the shortest path from man to man.’ That is what prompted me to accelerate the completion of my project in Paris.”
Patrizio Bertelli (R), chairman of Prada, and his wife designer Miuccia Prada in Valencia, Spain. Photo by Rafa Rivas / AFP / Getty Images.
64. Miuccia Prada & Patrizio Bertelli
Nationality: Italy
Category: Patron
Single Line Identifier: Italian fashion designer, entrepreneur, art collector, and co-founder Fondazione Prada in Venice and Milan.
Quote: “I hate the idea of being a collector. I really hate it. I’m not a collector.”
Pirkko Ackermann, Eva Presenhuber, Linda Yablonsky, April 23, 2013. ©Patrick McMullan. Photo – Nicholas Hunt /PatrickMcMullan.com.
65. Eva Presenhuber
Nationality: Austria
Category: Art Dealer
Single Line Identifier: Zurich-based powerhouse whose artist roster includes both the established and the new.
Quote: “The challenge is being able to find the greatest artists of the new generation and be useful to their needs.”
Jussi Pylkkanen, February 04, 2015 in London, England. Photo by Carl Court/Getty Images.
66. Jussi Pylkkanen
Nationality: Finland
Category: Auctions
Single Line Identifier: The Christie’s auctioneer told Forbes that he “personally sold $3 billion worth of art” in a single year.
Quote: “That’s when you get record prices—when people are not just engaged in the artwork, but they’re seeing it as a reflection of themselves.”
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