Here at Hyperallergic, our focus on those commonly overlooked in a field that often prioritizes luxury, wealth, and exclusivity differentiates us from other art publications.
We’re proud to present our annual 20 Most Powerless list, which recognizes those in our communities who would benefit from greater visibility. Ours is the opposite of silly “power” lists that reflect publications’ marketing budgets, editorial starfucking, and the priorities of their oftentimes billionaire owners. We’re interested in those left in the shadows of the powerful. That’s where the real stories begin, where the future is decided, where creativity conquers challenges that seem insurmountable, and where the future is decided.
In a year when many of us felt powerless, this list is a reminder that there is work we can do to create a field that benefits us all. Let’s get to it.
1. Ashville River Arts District — When Hurricane Helene made landfall in September, few areas were more devastated than Asheville, North Carolina, whose beloved River Arts District was all but wiped out. Jeffrey Burroughs, president of the River Arts District Artists association, remembered watching as the storm made off with the artworks and supplies of over 300 artists, telling Hyperallergic that it was like “watching the spirit of Asheville being washed away.”
2. Haitian-American Artists —“They’re eating the dogs, they’re eating the cats,” the man who’s about to become the US president (again) said about Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio. His hateful comments drew from centuries of vitriol against this specific immigrant group and led to a wave of new threats against its members. Little does he and his poodle JD Vance know how valuable, culturally vibrant, and resolute the Haitian-American community is, descendants of those who rose against their enslavers and colonizers, and won.
3. Sudanese Artists — Sudan’s relentless civil war has killed thousands of people and displaced millions, yet it seems that the rest of the world has forgotten, or more likely never cared to begin with. With much of the conflict focused in the capital, Khartoum, and other major cities home to many of the nation’s artists and art organizations, Sudan’s creative community is barely holding on — yet continues to find ways to make art amid the unfathomable death, chaos, and destruction.
4. Heads of Female Sculptures — One could argue that it’s never been an easy time to be a woman, but 2024 was a particularly bad year to be the head of a sculpture of a woman. Shahzia Sikander’s “Witness” (2024), a monumental golden figure evoking female agency within a patriarchal justice system, was beheaded in early July at the University of Houston campus. Just days earlier, a feminist artwork portraying the Virgin Mary in labor suffered the same fate at a cathedral in Linz, Austria. In the case of Sikander’s work, the artist opted not to repair the statue, stating that the damage “reflects the hateful misogynistic act and it should not be forgotten.”
5. Noguchi Museum Workers Who Dared to Wear Keffiyehs — The Noguchi Museum in New York City terminated three gallery attendants — Trasonia Abbott, Natalie Cappellini, and Q. Chen — who refused to comply with a new staff dress code barring the headscarves known as keffiyehs, popular symbols of Palestinian solidarity also worn culturally throughout the Arab world. (A fourth employee, the director of visitor services, was also let go amid the policy’s fallout.) The news sparked an ongoing wave of protests and led author Jhumpa Lahiri to turn down the museum’s 2024 Isamu Noguchi Award in support of the workers. It’s hard to say which is more powerless, really: the employees who lost their jobs, or Isamu Noguchi’s legacy, which the museum is running into the ground.
6. Palestinian Artists Killed by Israel — Heba Zagout was killed with her two young children in an Israeli airstrike in October. She was 39 years old. A year later, 32-year-old digital illustrator Mahasen Al-Khatib was killed by another Israeli airstrike. They were among tens of thousands of innocent civilians killed haphazardly in Israel’s ongoing bombings.
7. Camille Claudel — Behind every great man is a great woman who probably never received credit for her work. Do we know for sure that Auguste Rodin stole from his lover, disciple, and muse Camille Claudel? No. But is it likely? Oh, yes it is.
8. Jonathan Yeo’s King Charles Portrait — It looks like he’s burning in hell or drowning in the blood shed by the British Empire, and you’re mad about that? Isn’t that the most fitting immortalization of the man? The portrait certainly didn’t deserve to be targeted by animal rights protestors — not because their aims aren’t good, but because, come on, it’s been bullied enough.
9. The Whitney Biennial — You had one job, Whitney Biennial. After the “Tear Gas Biennial” back in 2019, which was arguably one of the best ever, the Whitney Museum of American Art clearly decided to stab this once-beloved exhibition in the back and turn it into a glorified art fair, shunning the clear politics of the moment in favor of bromides circling injustices past and kinda present — just not too present, as we have fundraising to do, don’t we?
This year’s version was ok, but we won’t settle for a dull and nice affair from an event that has played a crucial role in evolving conversations around contemporary art for decades. Maybe it’s over, but we want to think that there’s still some life and hope for renewal in this biennial that we all want to adore.
10. German Artists With Opinions — Germany — most tragically Berlin — is no longer the welcoming haven it used to be for freedom-seeking artists, writers, curators, and filmmakers. Now, there’s an atmosphere of fear, retribution, and censorship everywhere in the cultural sector. Not even Jewish and Israeli artists who are critical of Israel’s actions are safe from it. Germany has a lot of soul-searching to do, and not just about its genocidal past.
11. Anyone Who’s Not the Offspring of a Dictator — It’s tough out there for anyone who wasn’t born into a brutal family that craves absolute power and will torture all those who oppose it. I mean, how else are the children of dictators and autocrats supposed to show off their sensitive side to the champagne jet set if not through contemporary art and museums? Benefiting from the amnesia so many people seem to have around money and power, art is the balm that autocrats have been applying to their reputations whenever they see a need to PR themselves out of the realities they’ve created.
12. Art History Majors — “It’s not just a phase, mom … I want to be an art historian!” Such a declaration could send many parents of college-aged children into a spiral, as the discipline was revealed to be among the undergraduate areas of study with the highest rates of unemployment. Fine Arts, Performing Arts, and Graphic Design majors were only slightly more employable, according to data from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York for the first quarter of 2024. Hey, there’s always law school!
13. Florida Arts Organizations — Once Trump rival, now Trump BFF Ron DeSantis continued to advance his campaign of destroying culture in the state of Florida in 2024. In June, the governor vetoed $32 million in allocated funds for the arts and culture budget, leaving hundreds of organizations in the lurch. In the absence of public funding, institutions are typically forced to fill the gaps by leaning more heavily on private donors who might try to influence programming. Meanwhile, nonprofits all over the US are bracing themselves for the wave of censorship and repression foreshadowed by a chilling Republican-led bill passed by the House last month, which would grant the president the power to strip organizations deemed “terrorism-supporting” of their tax-exempt status.
14. Apples — After centuries of reigning as the “it” fruit in paintings or sculpture (see: Judgment of Paris, Cézanne, Magritte), apples are no longer the darlings of the art world. Bananas have slipped into first place as the fruit of the moment after a roll of duct tape and an Italian contemporary artist hoisted the appealing yellow food to the winner’s podium — and this is after it was itself on our Powerless list back in 2019 (how times have changed!). A fitting changing of the guard, as the art market continues to morph into a banana republic of sorts.
15. Futurisms — It has become a buzzword that has somewhat lost its meaning. Futurism this, futurism that — the present may suck, but that doesn’t mean we have to cede it to the future. Some mindfulness might be in order so that we’re rooted in where and when we are now.
16. Press Releases — Gone (or nearly gone) are the days of pretentious, verbose exhibition press releases filled with esoteric artspeak only three PhD students in the world could decipher. Those inscrutable texts of yesteryear feel almost nostalgic as galleries are increasingly using ChatGPT to write bland, insipid press releases, sometimes openly and ironically, but most often not. If there’s one thing that remains the same in the era of AI, though, it’s that no one ever reads them.
17. The Art Selfie — You had a good run, but selfies with art in a museum are now banal — they’re almost like taking a photo with a big bag of money. In our surveillance culture, selfies often reveal more than we want and track our lives in a way we wish they wouldn’t. Why train AI with our faces anyway? And sure, we can take a pic without posting it on the internet, but what’s the point, amirite?
18. Archeologists With Perfectly Fine Discoveries — Archaeologists who failed to unearth the oldest, largest, or most remarkably well-preserved example of whatever they found — regardless of how genuinely interesting or historically meaningful their discovery may be — are unfortunately powerless in a system that only values ancient culture when superlatives are involved. This year, we even saw how nationalistic regimes distort archeological findings to advance misleading, politically advantageous claims.
19. William the Ancient Egyptian Hippo — Before Moo Deng, we had William the Hippo, a diminutive 4,000-year-old hippopotamus sculpted in faience around 1961–1878 BCE that was the unofficial mascot of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Sadly, this tiny New Yorker got bumped out of the public imagination when the far younger, significantly more moisturized, and living internet sensation waddled into the hearts of the world. Sorry, William, but now we know the reason you’re so blue.
20. Tomato Soup — Hoisted by Andy Warhol into the spotlight in the 1960s, it has since become the medium of dissent as eco-protesters in museums splash it on the artistic commodities of the oligarch class. Maybe our palates have just moved on, but splashing ramen or udon dishes on art doesn’t quite have the same impact.
Honorable Mentions
Climate Activists Who Got Prison Time — War criminals, corporate overlords, and a particular orange-haired American politician who tried to overturn the 2020 election walk free, but two climate activists who are concerned about our future on this planet get thrown in prison? Let them go!
The Indigenous Whirling Log — It’s understandable why some might confuse the Native Whirling Log with the Nazi swastika, but the two are as different as night and day. It’s time to restore the cultural status of the former, and work to uproot the hate that perpetuates the latter.
