The Alt Power 100 Artlyst 2018, now in its 8th edition is a celebration of artists and art professionals who have made a difference in 2018. This annual ranking of the contemporary art world’s most essential influencers and power brokers include many who remain unrepresented on other lists.

2018 has been a strong year for international events like Manifesta, The Liverpool and Riga Biennials and a host of memorable and inclusive exhibitions.

One of the most refreshing aspects of 2018 has been a shift of emphasis from White Male Privilege to a more open-minded approach in the selection of art that is exhibited in our museums and galleries.

The emphasis on exhibitions mounted in unconventional spaces such as brutalist office buildings and public car parks is still a force to be reckoned with as Pop-ups were again a focus in 2018.

Leading art fairs like Frieze and Art Basel were the perfect opportunity to hijack the moment and help promote emerging art in its purest form. Artists can achieve a new context and audience for the art they create by showing their work in alternative spaces. Visual Art must be available to all that seek it out. This is the most inclusive way to promote dialogue, change, and express creativity.

Indeed, what emerges from the Alt Power 100 Artlyst 2018 this year is a great many figures not coming from the higher echelons of the world of finance or commercial galleries for that matter, (not to say we haven’t included the odd billionaire) but mainly individuals such as museum directors and curators, quietly making a difference in many ways.

If you are driven by curiosity and aesthetics and realise, like us that the art world isn’t just driven by money, then continue to read.

The number of new and imaginative enterprises outlined in the Alt Power 100 Artlyst 2018 will hopefully help bring art to a broader public, as well as focus on academic and critical engagement. This in itself is cause for celebration.

The Alt Power 100 Artlyst 2018 In Alphabetical Order So Everyone’s A Winner

1. Philly Adams – Senior Director Saatchi Gallery
2. Sir David Adjaye OBE RA – Ghanaian British architect, chair 2018 Stirling Prize for Architecture
3. Jane Alison – Head of Visual Arts Barbican
4. Ziba Ardalan – Founder and Director/Curator of Parasol Unit Foundation for Contemporary Art
5. Karen Ashton – Founder and Curator of the Art Car Boot Fair
6. Vanya Balogh – Artist/curator, known for his exhibitions in unusual spaces including underground car parks
7. Maria Balshaw CBE – Director of Tate,
8. Anne Barlow – Artistic Director Tate St Ives, winner of the Art Fund Museum of the Year 2018
9. Iwona Blazwick OBE– Director of Art at the Whitechapel Gallery
10. Erica Bolton/Jane Quinn: PR gurus and organisational magicians at Bolton & Quinn Ltd.
11. Bruce Boucher – Director of the Sir John Soane’s Museum.
12. Tania Bruguera- Hyundai Tate Commission
13. Helen Cammock, winner of Whitechapel’s Max Mara Art Prize for women
14. Martin Clark – Director of the Camden Arts Centre
15. Sir Michael Craig-Martin – Emeritus Professor of Fine Art at Goldsmiths London, previously a tutor at Goldsmiths where he fostered the talent of many of the YBAs.
16. Nicholas Cullinan – Director of National Portrait Gallery
17. Jeremy Deller – artist, Turner Prize Winner to design permanent memorial for Peterloo Massacre in Manchester
18. Edith Devaney, Contemporary Curator at the Royal Academy of Arts
19. Clare Doherty Director of Arnolfini, Bristol
20. Emily Druiff – Artistic Director and CEO of Peckham Platform
21. Sean Edwards – sculptor to represent Wales in Venice Biennale 2019
22. Olafur Eliasson – Danish-Icelandic artist known for sculptures and large-scale installation art employing elemental materials such as light, water, and air temperature.
23. Elmgreen & Dragset – artist duo subject of exhibition at Whitechapel Art Gallery
24. Alex Farquharson – Director Tate Britain,
25. Hedwig FIjen – Director of Manifesta
26. Gabriele Finaldi – Director of the National Gallery, London
27. Forensic Architecture – Turner Prize nominee
28. Ryan Gander – London-based conceptual artist, project at 2018 Liverpool Biennial working with local school children
29. RoseLee Goldberg – Director of Performa
30. Nan Goldin – artist for highlighting oxycontin problem
31. Katharina Grosse – painter known for her brightly coloured acrylic paintings
32. Kelly Grovier – American poet, literary critic, art historian and curator co-founder of European Romantic Review, author of 100 Works of Art That Will Define our Age
33. David Gryn – Director of Daata Editions & Artprojx and Curator, Film & Sound, Art Basel in Miami Beach
34. Susan Haire – Artist, President of the London Group and Director of Cello Factory
35. Anthea Hamilton – Tate Commission 2018
36. Jane Hamlyn Chair Paul Hamlyn Foundation Director of The Frith Street Gallery
37. Margot Heller – Director of South London Gallery
38. Lubaina Himid – 2017 Turner Prize winner, awarded OBE in Queen’s Birthday list
39. Mark Hix – Chef, Restaurateur, Gallerist and creator of the Hix Awards for emerging art
40. Paul Hobson, Director of Modern Art Oxford
41. David Hockney – National treasure who is still going from strength to strength, unveiled stained glass windows at Westminster Abbey
42. Rachel Howard – artist, exhibitions at Newport Street Gallery and Blain Southern
43. Alistair Hudson – Director of Manchester Art Galleries
44. Tristram Hunt – Director of V&A
45. Stefan Kalmar – Director of ICA
46. Alicja Kwade – installation artist included in Space Shifters at Hayward Gallery
47. Christopher Le Brun – President of the Royal Academy and artist
48. Helen Legg, Director of Tate Liverpool
49. Clare Lilley, Director of Programme YSP, curator of Frieze Sculpture
50. James Lingwood and Michael Morris – Co-Directors of Artangel since 1991, responsible for building Artangel into a significant international commissioning and producing organisation.
51. Andrew Logan – Sculptor, founder of The Alternative Miss World
52. Philip Long – Director, newly opened V&A Dundee
53.Edward Lucie-Smith – Art critic and senior art tastemaker
54. Tim Marlow – Critic, broadcaster and Head of Exhibitions at Royal Academy
55. Rachel McLean – multi-media artist represented Scotland at the 57th Venice Biennale
56. Steve McQueen – CBE and Turner Prize-winning video artist turned Oscar-winning Filmmaker
57. Haroon Mirza – artist international shows and commissions during 2018
58. Naeem Mohaiemen – Turner Prize nominee
59. Sarah Monk: Director of London Art Fair. Sarah has been Fair Director since 2013
60. Frances Morris – Director Tate Modern
61. Gregor Muir – Director of International Art at Tate
62. Sarah Munro: Director of the BALTIC
63. Andrew Nairne – Director Kettle’s Yard
64. Elizabeth Neilson – Director of the Zabludowicz Collection
65. Hans Ulrich Obrist – Serpentine Gallery’s Co-directors of Exhibitions and Programmes.
66. Suzanne Pagé – Artistic director of the Louis Vuitton Foundation for Creation in Paris
67. Maureen Paley – Gallerist opened a project space in Brighton
68. Cornelia Parker OBE, RA, sculptor and installation artist, films and photographs created whilst being the 2017 official Election artist were shown in 2018
69.Yana Peel – CEO Serpentine Galleries
70.Grayson Perry – Artist, known for his work in ceramics, this year’s coordinator of RA Summer Show
71. Michael Petry – Multi-media artist, writer and curator. Director of MOCA London, co-founder of the Museum of Installation,
72. Victoria Pomery – Director of Turner Contemporary
73.Charlotte Prodger – Turner Prize nominee
74. Michael Rakowitz – fourth plinth artist
75. Magali Reus – sculptor, shortlisted for Hepworth Prize For Sculpture 2018
76. Ugo Rondinone – sculptor for his installation in Liverpool
77. Eva Rothschild – Irish representative at Venice Biennale 2019
78. Ralph Rugoff, Director Hayward Gallery, Art Night, Venice Biennale 2019
79. Jenny Saville – painter 2018 exhibition for the Edinburgh Art Festival at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art exhibit NOW
80. Tim Sayer MBE – Art collector for donating his collection to Hepworth Wakefield.
81. Rebecca Scott and Mark Woods – Artist power couple – founders of Cross Lane Projects in Kendal Cumbria
82. Sean Scully RA – one of the finest abstract painters of his generation, twice nominated for Turner prize, internationally exhibited in China, the US, Spain, Germany, Russia and the UK. Major shows in 2018 at YSP and Blain Southern.
83. Nicholas Serota, Chair of Arts Council England
84. Victoria Siddall – Director of Frieze Art Fair
85. Bob and Roberta Smith OBE – contemporary British artist operating under the pseudonym, famous for painting slogan-bearing signage in support of various activist campaigns.
86. Donald Smith – Director of Exhibitions, Chelsea Space
87. Sally Tallant OBE, Director of Liverpool Biennial, awarded OBE in Queen’sBirthday list
88. Simon Tarrant – Director Emerald Winter Pride Art Awards
89. Paul Thompson – Vice-Chancellor of the Royal College of Art,
90. Sam Thorne – Director, Nottingham Contemporary, Nottingham, UK
91. Vicente Todolí – Artistic Director of Pirelli HangarBicocca in Milan since 2013
92. Fatos Ustek – Curator, appointed Director of David Roberts Art Foundation
93. Simon Wallis – Director Hepworth Museum,
94. Gillian Wearing – statue of suffragist Millicent Fawcett
95. Rachel Whiteread – first woman to win Turner Prize, permanent sculpture unveiled in Dalby Forest, North Yorkshire
96. Zoe Whitley, Curator International Art, Tate
97. Cathy Wilkes UK representative at Venice Biennale 2019 (58th)
98. Luke Willis Thompson – Turner Prize nominee and winner of Deutsche Borse Photography Foundation Prize
99. Lynette Yiadom-Boakye – artist and former Turner prize nominee
100. Anita and Poju Zabludowicz – Founded the Zabludowicz Collection in 2007, a space for exhibitions, commissions and residencies, as well as establishing the Zabludowicz Collection ‘Curatorial Open’ and ‘Testing Ground’ programmes to promote contemporary art education.

The Alt Power 100 Artlyst 2018 was compiled by our readers and from articles that have appeared throughout the year on Artlyst.