Powerful Artists?

The UK newspaper, the Telegraph, has published ArtReview's 2008 Power 100 List, accompanied by an article as well. The list highlights their choices for the year's most powerful people in the art world today. It's a rather fascinating hierarchy of international artists, curators, gallery owners, and private collectors. There aren't too many surprises. For instance, Damien Hirst, who is THE artist right now, is of course numero uno. His recent escapade of bypassing galleries and selling his own work direct at auction generated $127.26 million (with buyer's premium) in sales. (For more on the sale, check out CultureGrrl's blog entry.) If you're not sure who Hirst is, he's the guy who does sharks and sheep in aquariums, not to mention Beyond Belief, the diamond-encrusted skull that was on display at London's White Cube last year (the image here is the book cover from the catalog, courtesy of Amazon). One of Hirst's shark works, The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living, is currently on loan to The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Here is the list of just the artists. I've extracted them and reranked them, but their official ranking from the top 100 is in parentheses after their nationality. The list itself has links to their websites where you can get more information on them.
1. Damien Hirst (British, 1)
2. Jasper Johns (American, 9)
3. Jeff Koons (American, 11)
4. Gerhard Richter (German, 18)
5. Richard Prince (American, 19)
6. Takashi Murakami (Japanese, 28)
7. Richard Serra (American, 33)
8. Bruce Nauman (American, 45)
9. Cy Twombly (American, 46)
10. Ai Weiwei (Chinese, 47)
11. Andreas Gursky (German, 49)
12. Olafur Eliasson (Danish, 50)
13. Jeff Wall (Canadian, 52)
14. Peter Doig (British, 53)
15. Marlene Dumas (South African, 56)
16. Mike Kelley (American, 61)
17. Paul McCarthy (American, 62)
18. Banksy (British, 63)
19. Lucian Freud (British, 66)
20. Maurizio Cattelan (Italian, 68)
21. Cai Guo Qiang (Chinese, 69)
22. Robert Gober (American, 75)
23. Louise Bourgeois (American, 81)
24. Cindy Sherman (American, 82)
25. Liam Gillick (British, 86)
26. John Baldessari (American, 88)
27. Subodh Gupta (Indian, 92)
28. Casey Reas (American, 96)
29. Thomas Kincaid (American, 100)

And, yes, if you're wondering if you read the last name correctly, they are talking about the guy whose "artwork" (I say that with a groan) populates every shopping mall in America.