The non-fungible token or NFT has taken the No 1 spot in the annual ranking of contemporary art world movers and shakers, marking the first time a non-human entity has topped the list.
After a year in which it has upended the art market by bringing together contemporary art and millennial meme culture, the specification for the non-fungible token on the Ethereum block chain has become ERC-721, tops the 20th Power 100 list published by ArtReview.
ArtReview said NFTs had given rise to a whole new generation of collectors and allowed artists to find ways around the traditional gatekeepers of the market.
Even if you can't ignore the fact that the NFT explosion is driven by a feverish speculation over cryptocurrencies, JJ Charlesworth, editor at ArtReview, said that the NFTs have turbocharged a new crossover between pop culture and contemporary art.
The idea of digital assets and virtual collectibles is something that artists are making art in an increasingly online, virtual culture, and won't be gone away soon, according to the broader principle behind NFTs. The most valuable NFT to date is a collage by digital artist Beeple, which sold for 50.3 m at Christie's in March. Musician Grimes sold a collection of digital artwork for $6 m 4.4 m, while the original photo behind the 2005 Disaster Girl meme sold for $473,000 354,000 Collins Dictionary even made the NFT its word of the year.
Following the Black Lives Matter movement last year, the new Power 100 list shows the degree to which ideas and not specific artworks reflect a shift in the industry.
At No 2 is the anthropologist Anna L Tsing, and No 3 is the Indonesian collective ruangrupa who champion collaborative practice and will curate the Documenta 15 exhibition in Kassel, Germany in 2022. American artist Theaster Gates is at No 4, followed by German visual artist Anne Imhof at No 5.
The list also speaks to the inherent contradictions of the art world. The past year, artists, curators and galleries reflect on the climate crisis and capitalism, and have criticised NFTs and cryptocurrencies for their environmental impact.
Among these are the indigenous Australian collective Karrabing Film Collective No 8 curator Lucia Pietroiusti 13 and artist Olafur Eliasson 15 Artists whose work relates to the manifold injustices raised by the BLM movement. At No 9 is Carrie Mae Weems whose photographs and installations address Black female subjectivity, and at 11 is Kara Walker whose work tackles issues of race, gender and violence.
Achille Mbembe 14 Felwine Sarr and B n the dicte Savoy 16 and Koyo Kouoh 38 have led the calls for the restitution of looted objects to their places of origin.
Mark Rappolt, editor-in-chief, ArtReview, said there were significantly fewer western museums on the list this year, which in part reflects the fact that they are no longer driving the dialogue about contemporary art and reacting to it.
He said that this may reflect the slower pace of their processes or bureaucracies, but also the extent to which efforts to initiate dialogues about restitution, race and gender come from outside rather than within established orders.
The list was compiled by 30 unnamed panellists and collaborators from around the world. The past number-ones included Damien Hirst, the artistic director of the Serpentine, Hans-Ulrich Obrist, and the German artist Hito Steyerl.