Glenn Lowry takes top spot in Art Review's Power 100 list, while Nan Goldin comes in second Lowry photo: Peter Ross
The artist and activist Nan Goldin is the highest placed woman on Art Reviews annual Power 100 list this year, taking the number two slot after Glenn Lowry, the director of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York. Last years number one, the New York-based dealer David Zwirner, slides down to number five.
Goldin has been targeting the Sackler family and its company Purdue Pharma, which is accused of fuelling the opioid crisis in the US by aggressively marketing OxyContin and misleading doctors and patients about its addictive qualities, allegations that the company denies. The photographer revealed that she became dependent on OxyContin after suffering from tendonitis in her left wrist.
Goldins recent protests include an intervention at the Louvre in Paris. “Goldins questioning of the ethics of philanthropy is proving a point often subject to debate: that art and artists can and do effect change in the real world,” says an Art Review statement.
Goldin is the highest placed artist, followed by Hito Steyerl in fourth place, who also denounced Sackler sponsorship of cultural institutions earlier this year (she headed the Power 100 in 2017). Banksy, who has generated one headline-hitting event after another, makes his debut on the list at number 14.
This year saw the opening of a $450m makeover at MoMA, overseen by Lowry, which completely rethinks the installation of its collection, and jettisons the traditional idea of the Modernist canon in favour of a more geographically encompassing, multi-disciplinary approach.
“MoMA may have arrived at this approach with guidance from the Studio Museum of Harlems [director] Thelma Golden [ranked at number seven] and implicit encouragement from Tates recent efforts to decolonise and decentre its own collection (Tates director, Maria Balshaw, is ninth on the list),” Art Review says.
The ranking is a reflection of the headlines that have dominated the media over the past 12 months. Restitution is becoming a more urgent issue, hence the inclusion of the Senegalese economist Felwine Sarr and the French art histoRead More – Source
