International Art dealers Iwan and Manuela Wirth have topped this year’s Art Review Power 100. They beat out important figures such as Ai Weiwei and White Cube’s Jay Jopling. As we know the Art Review selection is mostly made as a commercial choice which names the most powerful figures in the art world. The Wirths topped ArtReview magazine’s Power 100 list for “what they have done to change the model of selling and promoting art”. They are the second art dealers to top the annual list in its fourteen year history. Larry Gagosian, also was number one in 2004 and 2010. This year he appears at number six.
Sir Nicholas Serota, topped the list in 2014 he is now number five on this year’s list. “The Wirths’ increased influence stems in part from what they have done to change the model of selling and promoting art,” ArtReview said. “As big art dealers are becoming ever better at selling art for high prices, and as collectors want to see themselves as more than just anonymous purchasers, the husband-and-wife-team understand that selling art objects isn’t the whole story – the well-off want to be sold a lifestyle.”
Charles Saatchi has been dropped from the list this year showing his waning power within the global art world. Several deserving collectors have also been overlooked including the Rubells and Anita and Poju Zabludowicz. How strange!
Here is the Power 100 list as published by Art Review
Here is the AR Top 10
1 Iwan & Manuela Wirth – Gallerists
2 Ai Weiwei – Artist
3 David Zwirner – Gallerist
4 Hans Ulrich Obrist & Julia Peyton-Jones – Serpentine Gallery Directors
5 Nicholas Serota – Director of Tate
6 Larry Gagosian – Gallerist
7 Glenn D. Lowry – Director MoMA, New York
8 Marina Abramović – Artist
9 Adam D. Weinberg – Director of the Whitney Museum of American Art
10 Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev – Curator of the 2015 Istanbul Biennial and Documenta 13