Non-fungible tokens take No 1 spot in influential art world power list

ArtReview said NFTs had given rise to a whole new generation of collectors and allowed artists to find ways around the traditional gatekeepers of the market.

Following the Black Lives Matter movement last year, the new Power 100 list reflects the degree to which ideas rather than specific artworks reflect a shift in the industry.

At No 2 is the anthropologist Anna L Tsing, and No 3 are Indonesian collective ruangrupa, who champion collaborative practice and will curate the Documenta 15 exhibition in Kassel, Germany, in 2022. American artist Theaster Gates is at No 4, followed by German visual artist Anne Imhof at No 5.

Among these are Indigenous Australian collective Karrabing Film Collective (No8), curator Lucia Pietroiusti (13) and artist Olafur Eliasson (15).

Artists whose work relates to the manifold injustices raised by the BLM movement continued to feature heavily. At No 9 is Carrie Mae Weems, whose photographs and installations address Black female subjectivity, and at 11 is Kara Walker, whose work also tackles issues of race, gender and violence.

Achille Mbembe (14), Felwine Sarr and B?n?dicte Savoy (16) and Koyo Kouoh (38) have all led the calls for the restitution of looted objects to their places of origin.

The list was compiled by 30 unnamed panellists and collaborators from around the world. Previous number-ones have included Damien Hirst, the artistic director of the Serpentine, Hans-Ulrich Obrist, and the German artist Hito Steyerl.

1 ERC-721 2 Anna L Tsing 3 ruangrupa 4 Theaster Gates 5 Anne Imhof 6 Fred Moten 7 Cao Fei 8 Karrabing Film Collective 9 Carrie Mae Weems 10 David Graeber and David Wengrow