The annual ranking of the most influential people in the artworld; interviews with key figures including Ai Weiwei, Anna L. Tsing and Byung-Chul Han; a project by Bani Abidi; and more
The December 2021 issue of ArtReview features the 20th edition of the Power 100, its annual ranking of the most influential players in the artworld. As the world continues to roll with and occasionally stagger under the punches being thrown by the pandemic, this issue looks at the contingencies and continuities of an artworld that, along with everyone else, is working hard to pull itself back together without losing focus on issues raised by the traumas of the past two years.
Reflecting a year in which the NFTs have upended the art market, ERC-721, the specification for the ‘non-fungible token’ on the Ethereum blockchain, is number one on the list. It is followed by anthropologist and thinker Anna L. Tsing at number 2, and ruangrupa, the Indonesian collective organising the five-yearly Documenta exhibition in Kassel, at number 3.
While men are in the minority on this year’s list, they permeate the issue and provide its cover image, as part of a version of Berlin-based Pakistani artist Bani Abidi’s artwork The Reassuring Hand Gestures of Big Men, Small Men, All Men (2021), commissioned for this issue.