Alt Power 100 Artlyst 2025- 2026 Art In Our Time

When Artlyst first started its Alt Power 100 Artlyst fifteen years ago, we were aiming at an audience fed up with the gratuitous love fest that other Power 100 lists produced. This list rewarded the commercial while ignoring the hard work of curators, museum directors, and the artists who are so crucial behind the scenes at the museum.

Sadly, the establishment and many imitators have commandeered our list, so we will now be publishing the Power 25.  

Paul Carter Robinson, Artlyst CEO  –  Sara Faith, Contributing editor

1) Alison Cole

Cole sits at the nerve centre of Labour’s cultural think tank, The Cultural Policy Unit. She has quietly shaped debates around access, funding, and public value, proving that influence in the arts often belongs not to institutions but to those who write the frameworks behind them.

2) Nnena Kalu

Kalu’s Turner Prize win in Bradford marked a decisive moment for British Art. Her exuberant, accumulative forms reject restraint, hierarchy, and minimalism, asserting joy, obsession, and process as valid — and powerful — artistic positions.

3) Sheryll Catto, Artistic Director & CEO/ Charlotte Hollinshead, Head of Artist Development at ActionSpace

As Artistic Director and CEO of ActionSpace, Catto has spent years dismantling the margins around learning-disabled artists. Her work is not about inclusion rhetoric but infrastructure — building studios, support systems, and professional pathways that treat artistic practice as serious, sustained Labour. Charlotte Hollinshead has led the ActionSpace South London Studio at Studio Voltaire for over 25 years. She supports artists with complex disabilities in developing their individual arts practice and delivers an extensive range of commissions, projects, events, and exhibitions.

4) Jane Hamlyn

Through the Paul Hamlyn Foundation, Jane Hamlyn has championed artists at critical, often precarious stages. The recent £750,000 distributed to ten UK artists reflects a model of philanthropy grounded in trust rather than branding.

5) James Payne, author of the best-selling art book and YouTube series Great Art Explained. Payne has a personal mission to make the language of art theory straightforward and to explain why art can be thrilling and can resonate with all of us on a deep personal level.

6) Jyll Bradley

Bradley’s practice moves with a quiet insistence, attentive to bodies, land, and the politics of return. At The Box Plymouth, Running and Returning unfolded as both spatial meditation and political gesture, resisting monumentality in favour of motion, memory, and fragile continuity.

7) Marlene Dumas

Dumas’ recent canonisation — from a Louvre acquisition to a record-breaking Christie’s sale — confirms what painters already knew. Her work confronts the body without sentiment, desire without comfort. The market’s late recognition feels less like triumph than inevitability.

8) Hurvin Anderson

Anderson’s long-overdue Tate Britain retrospective in 2026 formalises a career defined by migration, memory, and restraint. His paintings resist easy narrative, holding space between landscape and displacement with a deliberateness that has only sharpened over time.

9) Ryan Gander

As Curator of the 2026 RA Summer Exhibition, Gander brings mischief, conceptual elasticity, and a deep suspicion of hierarchy. His appointment suggests a show less about prestige and more about play, though never without intellectual consequence.

10) David Hockney

At 88, Hockney remains both artist and system: painter, draughtsman, technologist, and cultural touchstone. His insistence on seeing — really seeing — has outlived movements, markets, and fashions, leaving him not preserved by history but still actively shaping it.

11) Bettina Korek

As CEO of Serpentine Galleries, Korek has steered the institution through a period of recalibration, balancing global relevance with local responsibility. Her tenure has focused less on spectacle and more on sustainability — organisational, ethical, and cultural.

12) Koyo Kouoh

Kouoh’s death at 57 cut short one of the most lucid curatorial voices of her generation. As the appointed Curator of the 2026 Venice Biennale, she represented a future grounded in intellectual rigour rather than spectacle. Her absence will be felt acutely.

13) Julie Mehretu

Mehretu’s honour from the French state recognises an artist whose work maps power, conflict, and movement at a planetary scale. Her paintings read like aerial views of history mid-collapse — restless, layered, and unresolved.

14)  Jorge and Darlene Pérez

The donation of a monumental Joan Mitchell canvas to Tate by Jorge and Darlene Pérez confirms the posthumous re-positioning: not as an Abstract Expressionist adjunct, but as a painter whose emotional ferocity reshaped the language of abstraction itself. The Perez family are just the type of selfless collectors we respect, not in it for the flip but for the gatekeeping.

15) Steve McQueen

From Grenfell to Occupied City, McQueen continues to treat cinema as civic space. His work refuses consolation, insisting instead on duration, attention, and moral discomfort — qualities museums increasingly struggle to accommodate but urgently need. His Amsterdam project, which records buildings where Holocaust victims lived, is a powerful reminder of the rise of fascism in the Netherlands and beyond.

16) Wael Shawky

Shawky operates as a historian and fabulist, translating contested narratives into sculptural and cinematic form. His work destabilises authority, reminding viewers that history is not fixed but performed — often by those excluded from writing it.

17) Sir Paul Smith

Smith’s contribution to culture extends well beyond fashion. As Curator, collector, and connector, he has consistently bridged disciplines, proving that curiosity — rather than taste policing — is the most durable form of cultural leadership. His project space in central London is a magnet for emerging art.

18) Máret Ánne Sara

Tate’s selection of Sara for the Hyundai Commission foregrounds Indigenous knowledge systems within a major institutional frame. Her work confronts extraction, land rights, and survival with clarity that resists both romanticism and apology.

19) Simon Wallis OBE

Wallis’s appointment to lead the Royal Academy arrives at a moment of institutional uncertainty. His challenge is not visibility but relevance: how to make a centuries-old structure speak convincingly to the present.

20) François Pinault

Pinault’s collection, housed between Venice and Paris, represents a different model of power than Arnault’s — quieter, more curatorial, but no less influential. His legacy lies in letting art, rather than architecture, do the talking.

21) Osei Bonsu – (See Lead Photo)

Curator of International Art, Tate Modern, responsible for organising exhibitions, developing the Museum’s Collection and broadening the representation of African and African diaspora artists.

Prada operates where fashion, intellect, and contemporary art intersect without hierarchy. Through Fondazione Prada, she has enabled artists and thinkers to work at scale without dilution, redefining what cultural patronage can look like when driven by curiosity rather than vanity.

22) Sheikha Al-Mayassa bint Hamad bin Khalifa Al-Thani

As Chair of Qatar Museums, Sheikha Al-Mayassa commands one of the most ambitious cultural projects of the 21st century. Her influence has redrawn the global art map, shifting attention — and power — decisively beyond Western capitals.

23) Gabriele Finaldi – Director of the National Gallery, London. Knighted in last year’s New Year’s Honours List 2025

24) Sir Tristram Hunt

British historian, broadcast journalist and former politician who has been Director of the Victoria and Albert Museum since 2017. He has been knighted in the New Year’s Honours List 2026.

25) Bernard Arnault

The most powerful patron money can buy, Arnault reshaped the relationship between capital and culture in Europe. Through the Fondation Louis Vuitton, he positioned corporate patronage not as sponsorship but as architectural and curatorial spectacle, collapsing luxury branding and contemporary art into a single, unapologetic statement of power.

Here is last year’s Alt Power 100 Artlyst 2025 for comparison

A

Pio Abad is a Filipino visual artist based in London who was nominated for the 2024 Turner Prize.

Larry Achiampong – a British Ghanaian artist whose work includes moving images, sculptural installation, photographic and painted collage

Sir John Akomfrah CBE RA – the Ghanaian-born British artist, writer, film director, screenwriter, theorist and curator represented Great Britain at the 60th Venice Biennale in 2024.

Miren Arzalluz – Newly Appointed Director General of Guggenheim Bilbao. Arzalluz, a renowned art historian and curator, will take up her post in April 2025

B

Maria Balshaw, CBE – Director of Tate Art Museums and Galleries since 2017, is the first woman to hold the position. (Balshaw recently announced that she will be standing down in Soring 2026).

Banksy – the pseudonymous England-based street artist, political activist, and film director who unveiled a series of animal-themed murals this year that captured the public’s attention.

Alvaro Barrington is a London-based artist who is primarily a painter and often incorporates yarn, wood, and other media into his work.

Leonie Bell – Director V&A Dundee, Scotland’s Design Museum, responsible for ensuring that V&A Dundee continues to grow and evolve as a world-class design museum

Osei Bonsu – Curator of International Art, Tate Modern, responsible for organising exhibitions, developing the Museum’s Collection and broadening the representation of African and African diaspora artists.

Mark Bradford – the Los Angeles-based artist best known for his large-scale abstract paintings created out of paper, won the 2024 Getty Prize

Rosie Broadley – Joint-Head of Curatorial & Senior Curator of 20th Century Collections at the National Portrait Gallery and curator of Francis Bacon: Human Presence, currently at the NPG.

Khaleb Brooks, originally from Chicago, is a transgender, interdisciplinary artist exploring themes of blackness, transness, and collective memory and has been commissioned to create the UK’s Trans-Atlantic Slave monument.

C

Rob & Nick Carter –  husband and wife artist duo who have collaborated for over 20 years. Known for exploration into artworks using AI and robotics.

Guy Casely-Hayford OBE – British curator, cultural historian, broadcaster, and lecturer with Ghanaian roots and is the Director of V&A East.

Maurizio Cattelan – Italian visual artist. He is known primarily for his hyperrealistic sculptures and installations. His duct-taped banana sold at Sotheby’s this year for $5.2m in November 2024. He is often referred to as the Joker of Contemporary Art.

Sheryll Catto – Artistic Director and CEO of ActionSpace – a charity working with learning-disabled artists across London as a Creative Hub, Supported Studio and Artist Development Agency.

Lee Cavaliere – Artistic Director of VOLTA art fairs,

Aaron Cezar – founding Director of the Delfina Foundation, an independent, non-profit foundation dedicated to facilitating artistic exchange and developing creative practice through residencies, partnerships, and public programming.

Dr Helen Charman FRSA MA – Director of Learning, National Programmes and Young V&A at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London,

Judy Chicago – American feminist artist, art educator, and writer known for her large collaborative art installation pieces about birth and creation images, which examine the role of women in history and culture. Had a show at The Serpentine Galleries in 2024.

Martin Clark – Director of the Camden Arts Centre.

Jago Cooper – Director of the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts at the University of East Anglia (UEA) in Norwich and Professor of Art and Archaeology at UEA.

Dr Nicholas Cullinan OBE, took up his position as the Director of the British Museum in June 2024

D

Agnes Denes – Hungarian-born American conceptual artist based in New York. She is known for works in various media—from poetry and philosophical writings to highly detailed drawings, sculptures, and iconic land artworks. Her Living Pyramid 2024 sculpture was commissioned for the upcoming Desert X biennial.

E

Touria El Glaoui -Founding Director of 1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair

Tracey Emin DBE RA – English artist known for autobiographical and confessional artwork. Emin was made a Dame in 2024.

Ekow Eshun is a journalist, broadcaster, curator and Fourth Plinth Commissioning Group Chair. In 2024 he curated The Time Is Always Now at the NPG which showcased the work of contemporary artists from the African diaspora.

F

Alex Farquharson – Director Tate Britain. As Director of Tate Britain, he is Chair of the Turner Prize.

Gabriele Finaldi – Director of the National Gallery, London. Knighted in the New Year’s Honours List 2025

Bridget Finn  – American art dealer and gallerist. In 2024 she became the Director of Art Basel Miami Beach.

Katherine Fleming – runs the art world’s wealthiest fortress, the J. Paul Getty Trust.

G

Anya Gallaccio – artist known for her site-specific installations using organic materials. In 2024 she was selected to create London’s AIDS Memorial.

Liz Gilmore – after 14 years as Director of Hastings Contemporary, Gilmore is to become CEO of The Sherborne Dorset.

Nan Goldin – American photographer who highlighted the OxyContin epidemic and isolated the Sackler family’s role as the manufacturers of this lethal drug.

Will Gompertz became the Director of Sir John Soane’s Museum in January 2024.

H

Mark Hallett – English art historian specialising in the history of British art. He is the Märit Rausing Director of the Courtauld Institute of Art.

Jane Hamlyn MBE is chair of the Paul Hamlyn Foundation and Director of The Frith Street Gallery.

Margaret Harrison – English feminist and artist whose work uses a variety of media and subject matter.

Jacqueline Harvey – Director of the Women in Art Fair (WIAF) at the Mall Galleries in London

Margot Heller OBE – Director of South London Gallery, was responsible for embedding the gallery in its local community while establishing its international reputation.

Nathaniel Hepburn MBE – Director and Chief Executive of Charleston.

Joe Hill – Director of Towner Gallery, Eastbourne

Karin Hindsbo – Director of Tate Modern in 2023 and is determined to make it a ground-breaking institution.

Tristram Hunt – Director of the V&A Museums

I

J

Waldemar Januszczak – English art critic, television documentary producer, and presenter.

Shanay Jhaveri – Head of Visual Arts at Barbican. In 2024 the Barbican staged The Imaginary Institution of India Art 1975-1998.

Claudette Johnson MBE RA is a British visual artist. She is known for her large-scale drawings of Black women and her involvement with the BLK Art Group, of which she was a founder member. In 2024 she had a solo show at The Courtauld and was nominated for the Turner Prize.

Sir Isaac Julian CBE RA, British installation artist, filmmaker, and Distinguished Professor of the Arts at the University of California, Santa Cruz. In 2024, he was awarded the Whitechapel Icon Award.

K

John Kasmin – Iconic British art dealer, collector and photographer, also known as “Kas. In 2024, Lyndsey Ingram held an exhibition of his photos from the 1960s and 1970s featuring an international community of artists, dealers and critics.

Jasleen Kaur – Scottish artist, and the winner of the 2024 Turner Prize. She works with mixed media, including installations, sculpture, sound art, and writing, and has a socially engaged arts practice.

Koyo Kouah – Executive Director and Chief Curator of Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa (Zeitz MOCAA) in Cape Town since 2019 who has been appointed Curator of the 61st Venice Biennale.

Barbara Kruger, an American conceptual artist and collagist, is associated with the Pictures Generation. She is most known for her collage style, which consists of black-and-white photographs overlaid with declarative captions, stated in white-on-red Futura Bold Oblique or Helvetica Ultra Condensed text. Had an exhibition at The Serpentine in 2024.

L

Delaine Le Bas – British artist from a Romani background. She combines visual, performative and literary practices to create an artistic oeuvre encompassing all life areas. In 2024, she was nominated for the Turner Prize.

Clare Lilley – British art curator and Director of the Yorkshire Sculpture Park. (Lilley stood down from the post in 2025).

Professor Christoph Lindner – Royal College Of Art President and Vice-Chancellor

Hew Locke OBE RA – Guyanese/British sculptor and contemporary visual artist based in Brixton, London. In 2024 he turned his lens on the British Museum collection in a collaborative exhibition exploring histories of British imperial power.

M

Ibrahim Mahama – Artist – Part of Ghana’s thriving art scene and exhibiting internationally

Seema Manchanda – Director of The Showroom and chair of the Black Training and Enterprise Group (BTEG), a national race equality charity.

Teresa Margolles – Mexican conceptual artist, photographer, videographer, and performance artist. Currently, her sculpture for the Fourth Plinth Commission, Mil Veces un Instante (A Thousand Times in an Instant) the sculpture featuring the faces of 726 trans, non-binary and gender non-conforming people, can be seen in Trafalgar Square.

Sir Michael Craig-Martin CBE RA– Irish-born contemporary conceptual artist and painter and one of his generation’s most influential artists and teachers. He is an emeritus Professor of Fine Art at Goldsmiths. In 2024 the Royal Academy held a retrospective of his work.

Kerry James Marshall, Artist – African-American painter known for his paintings of Black figures.

Simon Martin – Director of Pallant House Gallery

Sarah McCrory – Director of Goldsmith’s CCA Gallery, set up to enhance Goldsmiths’ reputation for excellence and innovation in the arts

Mary-Anne McQuay – has been Head of the Programme at Bluecoat, Liverpool, since November 2014. She will be the Director of the 2025 Liverpool Biennial.

Julie Mehretu –  Artist – Gestural painter influencing the next generation

Beth Miller – Deputy Director for Advancement and External Affairs Yale Centre For British Art

Archie Moore – Aboriginal Australian multimedia artist. His work was represented in the Australian pavilion at the 2024 Venice, for which he won the Golden Lion.

Sarah Munro MBE –  Director of the BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art.

N

Sandy Nairne – CBE FSA is a British art historian and curator appointed Chair of Trustees at the Art Fund in 2024.

Lisa Nandy – British Labour Party politician serving as Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport

Barbara Nessim – American feminist artist, illustrator, and educator. She is a pioneering figure in computer arts.

O

Yoko Ono – born February 18, 1933) is a Japanese multimedia artist, singer, songwriter, and peace activist. Her work also encompasses performance art and filmmaking.

P

James Payne – Art Historian, creator of the video channel Great Art Explained

Michael Petry – ArtistAuthor His new Book, Mirror Mirror, is a must-read.

Victoria Pomery OBE is the CEO of The Box, Plymouth.

Q

R

Barbara Rae, Colourist/Printmaker  who received a Damehood in the 2025 King’s Honours’ List

Suhanya Raffel & Doryun Chong – Curator/Director and chief curator of Hong Kong’s M+ museum

Pipilotti Rist (born 21 June 1962) is a Swiss visual artist best known for creating experimental video art and installation art.

Gemma Rolls-Bentley – Curator and Author of Queer Art

Alex Ruger – New Director Frick Collection in NYC Former RA Creative Director

Ralph Rugoff OBE – Director of Hayward Gallery and past Artistic Director of the Venice Biennale. (Rugoff has announced that he will step down from the Hayward Gallery in Spring 2026).

S

Rebecca Salter CBE PRA – Artist President of the Royal Academy of Arts

Sir Nicholas Serota – Chair of Arts Council England.

Joe Scotland MBE – Director of Studio Voltaire

Wael Shawky – Artist – of note at this year’s Venice Biennale. Appointed Artistic Director of Qatar Museums’ Creative Hub Fire Station: Artist in Residence

Yinka Shonibare CBE RA  – Artist – His latest show at the Serpentine was exemplary

Victoria Siddall – Former Frieze Director, now Director of the NPG

Sir Paul Smith CH CBE RDI – fashion designer and curator

Stephen Snoddy –  British Artist and Director of  The New Art Gallery Walsall.

Kathleen Soriano – New Interim Director Hastings Contemporary

Anthony Spira – Director of M.K. Gallery

Tavares Strachan – For his show at Hayward Gallery in 2024, large sculpture at RA for the colonial exhibition

T

Gilane Tawadros – Director Whitechapel Art Gallery.

Dr Nicola Triscott – CEO of FACT, Liverpool, the U.K.’s leading organisation for supporting and exhibiting art, film, and new media.

U

V

W

Clarrie Wallis – Director of Turner Contemporary.

Simon Wallis OBE – Director of Hepworth Wakefield

Dominique White – Ninth Max Mara Art Prize Winner

Zoé Whitley – Director of Chisenhale Gallery

X

Y

Z

Mariam Zulfiqar – Director of Artangel.  Before joining the team in January 2022, Mariam led the National Art Programme at Forestry England