Art Review Power 100 for 2009: Year of the Curator

Art Review magazine unveiled their Power 100 list at the Frieze Art Fair in London. Damien Hirst, voted number one last year and the cover boy of Art Review's October 2009 issue, plummeted this year to number 48, indicating a possible reaction to the star artist syndrome occasioned by current economic worries. Although Bruce Nauman (number 10), Jeff Koons (13), Fischli & Weiss (19) and Mike Kelley (20) are highly placed.

Bruce Nauman

In addition to the expected mega dealers and mega collectors, a number of curators have garnered top power spots, led by omnipresent curator, panelist and art world organizer Hans Ulrich Obrist, the Swiss-born critic and co-director of Exhibitions at the Serpentine Gallery. He is this year's numero uno.

Hans Ulrich Obrist

Glenn Lowry, director of MoMA, took second place; he did not even appear in last year's list. Sir Nicholas Serota, director of the Tate, came in third.

Analysis from The Independent indicates:

It is curators rather than artists who are now regarded as the real movers and shakers of the art world.

"The people who are the top are the people who are kind of flexible and are able to cope with a world that is rapidly changing," said Mark Rappolt, editor of Art Review. "This is partly because of the recession, but partly because it was happening anyway, because you need to be flexible to work on a global level."

Other critic/curator/museum types given significant placement include Daniel Birnbaum (4), Anton Vidokle (8), Iwona Blazwick (9), Alfred Pacquement (18), Matthew Higgs (29) and Massimiliano Gioni (50). Glaringly absent is MoMA's Klaus Biesenbach. Glenn Beck comes in at number 100. It's good to know someone has a sense of humor.

The list in full:

1. Hans Ulrich Obrist

2. Glenn D. Lowry

3. Sir Nicholas Serota

4. Daniel Birnbaum

5. Larry Gagosian

6. François Pinault

7. Eli Broad

8. Anton Vidokle, Julieta Aranda & Brian Kuan Wood

9. Iwona Blazwick

10. Bruce Nauman

11. Iwan Wirth

12. David Zwirner

13. Jeff Koons

14. Jay Jopling

15. Marian Goodman

16. Agnes Gund

17. Takashi Murakami

18. Alfred Pacquement

19. Fischli & Weiss

20. Mike Kelley

21. Barbara Gladstone

22. Steven A. Cohen

23. Dominique Lévy & Robert Mnuchin

24. Adam D. Weinberg

25. Marc Glimcher

26. Brett Gorvy & Amy Cappellazzo

27. Tobias Meyer & Cheyenne Westphal

28. Ann Philbin

29. Matthew Higgs

30. Matthew Marks

31. Tim Blum & Jeff Poe

32. Gavin Brown

33. Ralph Rugoff

34. Liam Gillick

35. Anne Pasternak

36. Dakis Joannou

37. John Baldessari

38. Isa Genzken

39. Paul McCarthy

40. Michael Govan

41. Eugenio López

42. Cindy Sherman

43. Ai Weiwei

44. Patricia Phelps de Cisneros

45. Annette Schönholzer & Marc Spiegler

46. Diedrich Diederichsen

47. Richard Prince

48. Damien Hirst

49. Bernard Arnault

50. Massimiliano Gioni

51. Amanda Sharp & Matthew Slotover

52. Joel Wachs

53. Victor Pinchuk

54. Udo Kittelmann

55. Marina Abramovic

56. Michael Ringier

57. Gerhard Richter

58. Richard Serra

59. RoseLee Goldberg

60. Kasper König

61. Roberta Smith

62. Monika Sprüth & Philomene Magers

63. Germano Celant

64. Emmanuel Perrotin

65. Peter Schjeldahl

66. Beatrix Ruf

67. Okwui Enwezor

68. Nicolas Bourriaud

69. Karen & Christian Boros

70. Isabelle Graw

71. Maurizio Cattelan

72. Charles Saatchi

73. Jerry Saltz

74. Jasper Johns

75. Louise Bourgeois

76. Thaddaeus Ropac

77. Mera & Don Rubell

78. Thelma Golden

79. Sarah Morris

80. Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev

81. Anita & Poju Zabludowicz

82. Paul Schimmel

83. Jose, Alberto & David Mugrabi

84. Sadie Coles

85. Daniel Buchholz

86. Victoria Miro

87. Maureen Paley

88. Johann König

89. Nicolai Wallner

90. Maria Lind

91. Massimo De Carlo

92. Mario Cristiani, Lorenzo Fiaschi & Maurizio Rigillo

93. Rirkrit Tiravanija

94. Toby Webster

95. Long March Space

96. Nicholas Logsdail

97. Harry Blain & Graham Southern

98. Claire Hsu

99. Peter Nagy

100. Glenn Beck

The cover of the November 2009 issue of Art Review (which features the Power 100):



The magazine website has a page on the Power 100, with demographic breakdowns and an open comments thread.