Science/Damien Hirst tops the 2008 ArtReview Power 100

Posted by News on 14 October 2008 at 11:00am

Science, the company behind Damien Hirst's artistic production, marketing and publicity, is ranked number one in the seventh edition of ArtReview's Power 100, distributed in the November 2008 issue of the contemporary art magazine.

See the list in full here, along with previous years' lists.

The Power 100 issue is available at the Frieze Art Fair from Wednesday 15 October, and on newsstands everywhere from Thursday 16 October.

The 2008 edition of the Power 100 marks the second time Science/Damien Hirst has made it to number one (2005 was the first). In a year that began with the setting of new auction records for contemporary art and ended in global financial crisis, Hirst overshadowed and outshone, becoming the first artist to bring his work directly to auction (at Sotheby's London in September), and grossing £111 million in the process.

The top 10 also includes Kathy Halbreich, the first woman to appear on her own in the top 10. Ranked third, behind Hirst and gallerist Larry Gagosian, she is the newly appointed Associate Director of MoMA, New York, and the first of 32 women on this year's ranking of art world players in a list traditionally dominated by men.

As the global credit contagion spreads, financial institutions take a tumble in the art world, with both UBS and Deutsche Bank, longtime key art sponsors, ranked 62 and 63 respectively in 2007, falling off the Power 100 in 2008. In another sign of troubled times, a 'flight to quality' has seen the stock of the most established artists rising strongly. Lucian Freud (66) is included on the list for the first time this year, after achieving the highest price paid at auction for work by a living artist, while Jasper Johns (9), a veteran of the Power 100, breaks into the top 10, with a major retrospective at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

Other artists with momentum include Takashi Murakami (28), a superbrand in hot pursuit of Damien Hirst's business model, coming in at 61 places above his 2007 ranking for a year that saw a major exhibition of his work, including a Louis Vuitton store selling Murakami's own branded products, travel across the US and draw record numbers of museum goers. The list also includes the first street artist, Banksy (63), whose popularity and rising artworld presence have been credited with inspiring Tate to stage their first street-art show this past summer.

Ongoing artistic and financial strength in emerging markets has seen new listings for collectors Roman Abramovich and Dasha Zhukova (54) and a strong rise by Chinese artist Cai Guo-Qiang (69, from 99 in 2006), with first-time appearances by the Beijing-based Long March Project (93) and Delhi-based gallerist Peter Nagy (95).

The seventh annual ranking of the most powerful players in the contemporary art world – the ArtReview Power 100 - is published in ArtReview's November issue.

The 2008 list of the contemporary art world's top 100 artists, gallerists, collectors, and curators was compiled by ArtReview staff in consultation with a global network of contributing editors and an invited international panel, including media artist and newly appointed director of the Rhode Island School of Design, John Maeda, art critic and TV presenter Matthew Collings, and architect and professor Greg Lynn (recipient of the Golden Lion at this year’s Venice Architecture Biennale).

Entrants are judged on four criteria: genuine influence over the production of art, international weighting, art-market relevance and their contribution to the art world over the past 12 months.

ArtReview is a defining voice in the contemporary art scene, a monthly magazine published since 1949 and distributed throughout Europe, the US and Asia. Featuring profiles, news, reviews, city guides and specially commissioned artworks by established and emerging artists from around the globe, ArtReview is essential reading for a global community of artists and gallerists, collectors, curators – and indeed for anyone with an interest in art.

14 Comments

Comment by Fiona Liberatore on 14 October 2008 at 5:28pm: Great!!!!

Comment by Hanna Watts on 14 October 2008 at 9:21pm: ArtReview is a defining voice in the contemporary art scene, yes!!!

Comment by Soheyla B. Fahimi on 14 October 2008 at 11:01pm: FAN-TASTIC!!!

Comment by Judit V. Dora on 15 October 2008 at 12:19am: THIS IS WONDERFUL. www.artwanted.com/juditvdora

Comment by Katherine Earp on 16 October 2008 at 4:37pm: Art review enables artists to network and also enables emerging artists like myself to research what is going on in the art market. I recently watched an art programme on cannel 4 written and presented by art critic Robert Hughes which really inspired me he spoke about art and money, has art become too commercial have we lost our inner soul, food for thought?

Comment by Miguel Westerberg on 18 October 2008 at 12:55pm: NICE AND FANTASTIC ....

Comment by Alexander on 20 October 2008 at 11:18pm: Your ArtReview Power 100 Award (Science/Damien Hirst tops the 2008 ArtReview Power 100, ArtReview, November 2008) is an auto-deconstruction of the contemporary art scene which is all about spin, self-promotion, media, marketing, and making money and absolutely nothing to do with art as aptly confirmed by Hirst/Science who came first.

Damien Hirst makes money not art as Hirst cannot (literally) make art: Hirst cannot draw, Hirst cannot paint, Hirst cannot sculpt but Hirst can make money. Conversely, Van Gogh could make art but could not make money so would not have even qualified for the careerist-capitalist criteria of ArtReview’s Power 100 Award.

Donald Kuspit sees art today as a slave to money: "Money no longer serves and supports art, art serves and supports money... Money has completely conquered art, indeed, art has become a species of money... Marshall McLuhan famously said 'art is what you can get away with.' Today art is what price you can get away with... Today art's importance is that it creates money... Both art and criticism have been defeated by money." (Donald Kuspit, Art Values or Money Values: An Analysis of Art Prices in 2006, New York Studio School, 2007).

And Robert Hughes talking about Damien Hirst’s kitsch skull, For the Love of God, insightfully stated: "Art like this stripped of everything but its market value. If art can’t tell us about the world we live in then I don’t believe there’s much point in having it; and that is something we’re going to have to face more and more as the years go on - that nasty question which never used to be asked because the assumption was always that it was answered long ago: What good is art? What use is art? What does it do? Is what it does actually worth doing? And an art which is completely monetarised in the way that it’s getting these days is going to have to answer these questions or it’s going to die.” (Robert Hughes, The Mona Lisa Curse, Channel 4 TV, 2008.) Hirst’s For the Love of God should be rebaptised For the Love of Money.

If one does not play the money-game, the market-game, the media-game then one cannot play the art-game (which has nothing to do with art). But with the current credit crunch the days of the money-game (disguised as the art-game) are almost over and art can reclaim its true value which is always alien to monetary value. Art -as a Gift of Being - cannot (really) be bought or sold for giving is not selling and buying is not giving: Art is (only) for Nothing.

Hegel’s prophecy of the end of art and Marx’s thesis of the demise of capitalism will not happen as art - like capitalism - always survives and thrives off its own deaths where so-called crisis is creation itself.

Martin Heidegger’s urgent Question regarding our Forgetting of Being now becomes the Question concerning our Forgetting of Art.

Comment by Nathan Nicholls aka-recyclesculptor on 22 October 2008 at 4:36pm: I agree with the above commenter. Fortunatelly sucsess from an artistic standpoint has little to do with monetary gain but everything to do with impact. We need not be viewed as sucsessful financially to be sucsessful. Surely I shoot myself in the foot when I say things like this. Corporate America will never buy or contribute to my art though they will likely steal it. So I sacriffice my financial sucsess for my artistic sucsess and will pass as a true artist living in full enjoyment of my expression and the posative impact I have on others. Was my pig disection in science class art? Perhaps but it left no posative impact on anyone I can think of.

Peace-recyclesculptor

Comment by Luke Gilliam on 29 October 2008 at 9:40pm: Here is a question for pretty much everyone who uses and looks at this website:

Has Damien Hirst topped the 2008 ArtReview Power 100 because of his skill or because of the amount of money people spend on his work. If I am correct that that this list is a measure of skill, then precisely which skill is being refered to? I find it mildly humerous as I have heard precisely 129 artists and art collectors (I wrote them down) in the last 18 months tell me that his work is actually quite dull and rarely original. Without speaking negatively on his obvious skill as an entrepreneur or should we just say, investor.

Also, after reading over 30 articles on modern art and the arts in general in magazines in 4 countries in the last five years (Canada, England, France and Denmark) I would like to point out that not one single one of them was as interesting as the one posted above by Alexander. What is curious is that he does not work for the magazine upon which the article is posted? It would be interesting to see his article published as a feature article in the magazine, not to speak any negative connotations about anyone but to kick off the actually real art industry weaknesses versus the supposed ones. Does anyone read real information any more? (Hmm)