The Top 20 Most Powerless People in the Art World

*Oh, why stop there, you big snarky cynics: in the contemporary art world, EVERYBODY is powerless.

http://hyperallergic.com/711/powerless-20/

A few weeks ago Art Review announced the Top 100 power brokers in the art world but we thought they missed the real story. So Hyperallergic has released its own list of the people who have never received their moment in the sun.

We present “The Top 20 Most Powerless People in the Art World!”

1 – Everyone entirely unknown ...

to Hans Ulrich Obrist – If the kingmaker isn’t on your cell phone, well, at least your mother is. (((This guy is so omnipresent in the art world that even *I* know Hans Ulrich Obrist)))

http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/obrist08/obrist08_index.html

*So does William Gibson:

http://www.artbook.com/violetteeditions.html

*and Cory Doctorow:

http://idealurbs.blogspot.com/2007/03/hans-ulrich-obrist-intro.html

(((Guys who aren’t even freakin’ artists.)))

2 – The guy in the bunny outfit who year after year protested in front of Gagosian’s 25th Street gallery — hey buddy, how’s the career?

3 – Independent curators without trust funds – There’s a saying, “No trust, no love.”

4 – Artists who can’t speak English, French, German, or Spanish. While the world is filled with approximately 6,800 languages, artwork must adhere to the linguistic realities of economics. (((C’mon, even language itself adheres to the linguistic realities of economics.)))

5 – That man at all the openings who might be homeless. Wine at gallery openings may be the art world’s only form of social service to people outside their realm, but hey, it’s something. (((It’s something if, as a ragged, enfeebled wino, you can claw your way in there past the artists.)))

6 – Beleaguered Administrative Assistants at MoMA – This is a group that knows what it’s like to be underpaid, under-appreciated and powerless — the trifecta!

7 – Assistant Curators living off $27,000 salaries, with $80,000 in grad school debt from a fancy curatorial studies program….

8 – Anyone living in only one place, as opposed to “between Berlin and Beijing,” or “based in London, Amsterdam, Sao Paolo, and Los Angeles.” Where have you been, mono-urbanity is so 20th century. How do you expect to address globalism by staying put? You probably feel even more like a failure if you were born and grew up in the same city that you currently live in. If that’s the case, you should just fake an accent… (((”Austin Belgrade Torino,” grazie mille.)))

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