The 2025 edition of the ArtReview Power 100 list delivers a truly historic moment for global contemporary art: for the first time in the ranking’s 24-year history, an African figure has claimed the number one position. Ghanaian artist Ibrahim Mahama‘s ascent to the top spot is not merely an individual achievement but a seismic cultural event, fundamentally reshaping the geography of influence and validating a model of power rooted in institution-building, civic responsibility, and infrastructural autonomy over traditional market metrics. The unprecedented presence and high ranking of numerous African artists, curators, thinkers, and collectives—including the newly influential curator Marie Hélène Pereira—clearly demonstrate that the intellectual and creative centres of gravity in the art world have decisively decentralized from old Euro-American hubs to embrace the dynamic ecosystems being built across Africa and its diaspora.
This influential cohort is not simply participating in the global conversation; it is actively setting its terms, challenging and redefining what “power” signifies in the contemporary art ecosystem. Their collective impact stems from a rigorous and interconnected engagement with decolonial thought, the critical re-evaluation of global histories, and the deliberate construction of sustainable artistic frameworks within the African continent and its diaspora. From Mahama’s ambitious art centres in Tamale, Ghana, which are financed by his international success, to the reparative justice model pioneered by the CATPC in the DRC, this generation of leaders is leveraging global visibility to effect tangible, on-the-ground change. By occupying pivotal roles both as creators of global-calibre art and as the architects of new, self-determined institutional frameworks, these figures are ensuring that African narratives, aesthetic concerns, and critical methodologies are not just integrated but are actively directing the global art discourse, signaling a powerful and enduring realignment of global cultural authority.
The Architects of Influence: Artists, Curators & Thinkers
#1 Ibrahim Mahama (Ghana) – Artist & Institution Builder
Ibrahim Mahama’s groundbreaking rise to the apex of the 2025 ArtReview Power 100 list is the ultimate recognition of generative influence, prioritising his systemic impact over pure art market value, which is itself exceptionally high. His signature practice involves monumental installations of jute sacks and repurposed industrial materials—like old train carriages and scrap metal—which are sewn together and draped over public buildings and historical sites, forcing a visceral confrontation with the complex, material history of colonial extraction, labour, and global commodity flows, such as Ghana’s cocoa trade. Mahama’s work uses the physical scars on these materials to articulate the “physical impossibility of debt” and the enduring economic entanglement between the Global North and South, making his art a potent vehicle for historical and economic critique that operates on an architectural scale.
The foundational reason for his number one position is his revolutionary commitment to reinvesting his commercial success—garnered from major international exhibitions and high-profile sales—directly into establishing independent, artist-led infrastructure in northern Ghana. He founded the Savannah Centre for Contemporary Art (SCCA), the Red Clay Studio, and Nkrumah Voli-ni in Tamale, creating a comprehensive network of exhibition spaces, residency programs, and educational hubs that are autonomous from Western funding and ideological control. This deliberate model of cultural repatriation and self-determination is seen as a blueprint for a new form of artistic leadership, where art is not just a commodity but a source of capital used for long-term community development, cementing Mahama as a visionary who is actively shifting the locus of power in the art world.
#4 Wael Shawky (Egypt) – Artist, ‘Historian-Translator’ & Art-Fair Director
Egyptian artist Wael Shawky maintains a dominant position, recognized for his profound ability to re-narrate and re-translate contested historical events through meticulously produced film and theatrical installations that challenge Eurocentric perspectives on the Middle East. His magnum opus, the Cabaret Crusades film trilogy, uses antique marionettes and handcrafted puppets to recount the history of the Crusades exclusively from Arab chronicles, effectively disrupting Western historical myths and revealing the brutality and complexity of the conflicts from a non-Western viewpoint. This technique, where he transforms historical documents into mesmerizing, theatrical visual narratives, uses the ostensibly benign medium of puppetry to convey complex geopolitical and religious conflicts, providing a highly compelling and critically acclaimed method of engaging with post-colonial memory.
Shawky’s influence is amplified by his significant role as a structural agent within the global art landscape, notably through the founding of MASS Alexandria, an independent, non-academic study program in his hometown that nurtures emerging artists and fills educational gaps in the regional art scene. Furthermore, his appointment as the Artistic Director of the inaugural Art Basel Qatar (scheduled for 2026) places a major, critically engaged Arab voice at the helm of a globally consequential commercial platform in the Gulf. This dual capacity—as a major artist whose work is deeply invested in historical critique and as an organiser shaping the institutional frameworks of both education and commerce—underscores the breadth of his power in defining both the aesthetic and economic narratives of contemporary art from the Middle East and Africa.
#13 Julie Mehretu (Ethiopia / USA) – Gestural Painter & Major Influence on Younger Generations
Ethiopian-American artist Julie Mehretu remains a towering figure whose large-scale, architecturally-inflected abstract paintings are considered a pinnacle of contemporary painterly ambition, mapping the complex, turbulent dynamics of global urbanisation, political upheaval, and migration. Her signature style is defined by a dense layering of marks, architectural blueprints, and calligraphic gestures, which together create a frenetic, atmospheric sense of space that simultaneously depicts the physical structure of a city and the invisible forces of power, capital, and conflict that shape it. Mehretu’s works are not merely abstract compositions but psychogeographic maps of global interconnectedness, using a modernist vocabulary to process the profound anxieties and spatial complexities of the 21st century, securing her position as one of the most critically and commercially important painters working today.
Mehretu’s enduring power is evidenced by her continuous presence in major international museum retrospectives and her significant influence on a younger generation of artists who seek to embed political and historical depth into abstract practice. She has often used her platform to engage with global crises, including her support for humanitarian causes and her highly visible commissions, such as the monumental painting for the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, which function as powerful public statements on social justice and historical memory. Her rigorous, complex methodology—which combines draughtsmanship, painting, and digital processes—offers a model for how abstraction can be a powerful tool for critical inquiry and geopolitical mapping, ensuring her work remains a definitive benchmark for high-stakes contemporary painting globally.
#14 Yinka Shonibare (Nigeria / UK) – Artist & Elder Statesman, Founder of Guest Artists Space
Nigerian-British artist Yinka Shonibare continues to exert profound influence as an elder statesman whose sophisticated, multi-media practice critiques the enduring legacies of colonialism, class, and constructed identity with wit and elegance. His instantly recognisable use of brightly coloured Dutch wax fabric—a textile that is itself a product of global trade, cultural misinterpretation, and colonial history—is central to his sculptures, which often depict headless, historical figures in elaborate Victorian attire engaged in activities symbolic of the aristocracy or historical figures. This deliberate material and visual contradiction exposes the complex, interwoven nature of global culture, using a visually seductive aesthetic to unravel narratives of cultural appropriation and post-colonial hybridity.
Shonibare’s power has been increasingly institutional, notably through the founding and expansion of the Guest Artists Space (G.A.S.) Foundation, a dual residency program operating in both London and Lagos, Nigeria. This initiative actively addresses the lack of high-quality, non-commercial institutional support for artists in West Africa, creating a vital bridge for cross-cultural exchange and resource-sharing between the continent and the diaspora. By channeling his commercial success and international network into building this physical infrastructure, Shonibare embodies a commitment to structural philanthropy, ensuring that his artistic critique of colonial systems is matched by tangible efforts to empower emerging artists and strengthen the institutional landscape in Nigeria.
#20 Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò (Nigeria / USA) – Philosopher of Race, Class & Decolonial Politics
Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò, the Nigerian-American philosopher, holds a uniquely high rank that underscores the art world’s increasing reliance on critical theory, political philosophy, and reparative justice models to inform its curatorial and artistic direction. His work goes beyond conventional academic critique, focusing on a “constructive radicalism” that advocates for tangible, systematic reform and reconstruction in response to historical injustices of race, class, and colonialism, connecting these issues to contemporary crises like climate change. Táíwò’s intellectual contributions, disseminated through influential essays and books, provide the essential analytical framework through which many contemporary artists, curators, and institutional leaders understand and articulate their political commitments.
His direct influence on the art world stems from his work forcing cultural institutions to confront their own fraught histories, from collection provenances to funding structures, moving the conversation beyond superficial diversity initiatives. His rigorous arguments for institutional repair and his critique of tokenism have become a core reference point for museum professionals seeking to implement meaningful decolonial strategies, making his philosophical contributions a practical tool for structural change. In an era demanding heightened political engagement from the arts, Táíwò provides the theoretical vocabulary and ethical mandate, positioning the philosopher as a vital co-creator of the contemporary art discourse.
#26 Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung (Cameroon / Germany) – Museum Director (HKW Berlin) & Bienal de São Paulo Curator
Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung’s elevated rank reflects his masterful capacity to simultaneously lead a major European institution and curate a globally consequential biennial, consistently leveraging these platforms to champion Global South perspectives and non-Eurocentric intellectual traditions. As the Director and Chief Curator of the Haus der Kulturen der Welt (HKW) in Berlin, he commands one of Germany’s most significant venues for international cultural exchange, where he has pursued a radical, non-linear, and poly-vocal programming agenda, actively questioning the colonial archives and biases inherent in the institution’s own history and location.
His influence was dramatically amplified by his role as the Chief Curator of the 36th Bienal de São Paulo, a vital exhibition titled “Not All Travellers Walk Roads – Of Humanity as Practice.” Ndikung’s curatorial team embraced a methodology that deliberately eschewed nation-state categories, instead structuring the exhibition around themes of humanity, active listening, and collective practice, inspired by bird migration patterns. This approach created a powerfully deterritorialised and interconnected presentation that prioritised artists and voices from outside the traditional Western canon. His ability to operate successfully and critically at the highest levels of institutional power in both Berlin and Brazil makes him one of the most impactful forces driving the decolonial transformation of global exhibition-making.
#27 John Akomfrah (Ghana / UK) – Filmmaker & Totemic Figure in British Black Arts
John Akomfrah stands as a totemic and hugely influential figure in contemporary film and moving-image art, whose multi-screen film installations offer profound, elegiac meditations on the Black diaspora, memory, migration, and post-colonial histories. A co-founder of the influential Black Audio Film Collective (BAFC) in 1982, Akomfrah’s work has consistently challenged the dominant ethnographic and cinematic gaze, using a fragmented, lyrical montage style that weaves together archival footage, original cinematography, and speculative narrative. His films resist simple chronology, instead creating immersive, multi-sensory experiences that process historical trauma and the complexities of Black subjectivity across the globe.
His enduring influence is rooted in his ability to maintain a deeply personal, poetic voice while tackling grand, urgent historical themes, securing his place in the collections and programming of major institutions worldwide, including the Tate Modern and MoMA. Akomfrah’s installations on subjects ranging from the environmental crisis and the deep sea as a repository of historical trauma to the life of cultural theorist Stuart Hall have provided a crucial template for how artists can engage in archival activism and counter-historical narration through film. His continued artistic ambition and critical acclaim confirm his status as a key pioneer whose cinematic language profoundly shapes the possibilities of the contemporary moving image as a tool for critical, emotional, and political inquiry.
#31 Sammy Baloji (Democratic Republic of the Congo) – Artist & Co-founder of Lubumbashi Biennale
Artist Sammy Baloji from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) is a crucial figure whose acclaimed photography and installation work offers a rigorous, unrelenting confrontation with the ongoing material and environmental costs of colonial and neo-colonial extraction in Central Africa. His practice is fundamentally a form of archival and spatial investigation, often juxtaposing historical Belgian colonial photographs and administrative documents with his own contemporary images of the same sites—particularly the Copperbelt’s scarred landscapes and mining zones. This layering creates a powerful, chilling dialogue between past exploitation and its enduring impact on the land and the local population, revealing the continuity of resource-based violence.
Baloji’s influence is uniquely structural due to his role as a dedicated institution-builder within the DRC, most significantly as a co-founder of the Lubumbashi Biennale. Operating in a region with immense political and economic challenges, this independent biennial provides a critical, self-determined platform for Congolese and African artists to engage in sophisticated dialogue and showcase their work without relying on the commercial dictates or ideological framing of Western centres. By using his international artistic standing to sustain a vital local infrastructure, Baloji exemplifies the kind of de-centralised, ethically-driven power that ArtReview now recognises, combining high-level artistic production with a profound commitment to cultural sovereignty on the continent.
#45 Azu Nwagbogu (Nigeria) – Curator, Founder of African Artists’ Foundation & LagosPhoto
Azu Nwagbogu’s significant rank reflects his status as one of Africa’s most prolific and essential cultural entrepreneurs, having dedicated decades to building the foundational institutions that have critically supported and propelled contemporary Nigerian and African art onto the global stage. As the Founder and Director of the African Artists’ Foundation (AAF) in Lagos, Nwagbogu created a stable, non-profit organisational bedrock that offers crucial infrastructure—residencies, workshops, and exhibition space—for nurturing local artistic talent, filling a massive institutional void in Nigeria’s cultural ecosystem.
His most internationally significant contribution is the creation of the LagosPhoto Festival, the premier international art festival of photography in Nigeria, which has become a landmark annual event for West African visual culture. LagosPhoto provides a powerful, corrective platform that enables African photographers to define and control their own visual narratives of the continent, directly challenging the historical dominance of the Western ethnographic gaze. By consistently programming artists from across the continent and the diaspora and fostering critical discourse, Nwagbogu has not only established Lagos as a crucial hub for photographic innovation but has also fundamentally shaped the global conversation around contemporary photography, making him a central figure in the politics of visual representation.
#55 Marie Hélène Pereira (Senegal / Germany) – Curator & Senior Curator (HKW Berlin)
The inclusion of Marie Hélène Pereira at #55 is a major recognition of her pivotal role in bridging the gap between independent, self-organised African cultural platforms and major European institutions, positioning her as a key driver of decolonial curatorial methodologies. A cultural practitioner from Dakar, Senegal, Pereira was a long-time member and Director of Programmes for the influential RAW Material Company in Dakar, a foundational, non-profit centre for art, knowledge, and society in West Africa that has championed critical thought and artistic production. Her work there focused on creating discursive and exhibition programs that are deeply embedded in African social and political contexts, often exploring the politics of identity and histories of migration.
Her influence has expanded significantly through her current role as Senior Curator for Performative Practices at the Haus der Kulturen der Welt (HKW) in Berlin, working alongside Ndikung. This appointment places her at the heart of one of Europe’s most progressive cultural institutions, where she continues to champion Global South epistemologies and experimental curatorial formats. Crucially, Pereira is part of the three-strong delivery team currently shepherding the vision for the 2026 Venice Biennale following the passing of its planned curator, Koyo Kouoh. Her role in ensuring the successful execution of this critical exhibition, which is poised to reflect Kouoh’s profound vision for the future of curatorial practice, places her at a nexus of global institutional power, confirming her as one of the most impactful curators of her generation.
#69 blaxTARLINES (Ghana) – Artist Collective & Pedagogical Collective based in Kumasi
The continued high ranking of blaxTARLINES—the dynamic artist and pedagogical collective rooted in the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) in Kumasi, Ghana—affirms the growing power of collective action, experimental education, and decentralised art networks. Emerging from the influential KNUST Fine Art Department, the collective, which shares intellectual lineage with Ibrahim Mahama, champions an anti-establishment approach to art that prioritises collaborative practice, radical pedagogy, and community engagement over the singular genius model favored by the commercial market. Their primary influence is infrastructural and intellectual, actively shaping the conceptual and aesthetic framework for a new generation of Ghanaian artists.
blaxTARLINES’ impact lies in its pioneering of an “unlearning” process within art education, actively challenging the historical imposition of Eurocentric art history and critical theory within the African university system. Through public projects, collaborative exhibitions, and non-hierarchical organisational structures, the collective fosters a vibrant space for developing aesthetic and conceptual vocabularies rooted in local histories and sociopolitical realities. Their model of a pedagogical and organizational network demonstrates a potent form of power that is generated locally, through teaching and collective practice, but that resonates globally by providing a radical alternative to the conventional structure of art production and education.
#71 Liza Essers (South Africa) – Gallerist & Director of Goodman Gallery
Liza Essers maintains her position as one of the most influential gallerists globally, a power rooted in her decisive stewardship of the Goodman Gallery, one of Africa’s most historically significant commercial art institutions. With spaces in Johannesburg, Cape Town, and London, Essers has dedicated the gallery’s focus to artists whose work is overtly political, conceptually rigorous, and deeply engaged with the complexities of South Africa’s post-apartheid reality and the broader African continent. She has successfully cultivated a space where commercial viability aligns with critical content, often supporting artists whose practice is inherently activist or challenging to prevailing power structures.
Essers’s influence is strategic, functioning as an essential gateway for African artists to the international museum and collector circuit. By skillfully positioning the work of prominent African artists into major international collections, she plays a vital role in ensuring that African voices are permanently written into the global art historical canon, extending their reach far beyond the exhibition space. Her leadership transforms the commercial gallery model into a powerful vehicle for advocacy and cultural diplomacy, using the apparatus of the global art market to achieve greater visibility and critical recognition for contemporary African artists, making her an indispensable gatekeeper of transnational artistic flow.
#82 Cercle d’Art des Travailleurs de Plantation Congolaise (DRC) – Artist Collective
The Cercle d’Art des Travailleurs de Plantation Congolaise (CATPC), based in Lusanga (DRC), remains a uniquely powerful presence on the list, representing the radical fusion of artistic production with social, environmental, and economic justice. Composed of workers from former Unilever palm oil plantations, the collective’s sculptures and installations—often carved from the wood of plantation palms—are direct, visceral confrontations with the history of land exploitation under colonialism and its continuation under global corporate governance. Their art is a means to an end: Reparations and Land Reclamation.
CATPC’s model is profoundly revolutionary: they use the proceeds generated from the sale and exhibition of their artwork in the international art market to directly repurchase the land of the former plantation for community use and to establish autonomous economic projects, such as a local co-op. Their project, which includes the establishment of the Lusanga International Research Centre for Art and Economic Justice (LIRCAEJ), fundamentally redefines the relationship between art, economy, and reparations, shifting the aesthetic critique of global capitalism into a tangible mechanism for land return and communal empowerment. By converting cultural capital into material change, CATPC provides a powerful, real-world example of praxis-based, decolonial influence that operates at the intersection of aesthetics and political action.
The 2025 ArtReview Power 100 is not simply a list; it is a meticulously compiled portrait of a cultural revolution, one where African and Diasporic practitioners have definitively taken the lead in shaping the ethical and structural future of contemporary art. The collective, high-ranking presence of these twelve African figures and collectives—spanning eight countries and multiple disciplines—marks a decisive shift toward a polycentric art world where influence is measured not just by market value or museum endorsements, but by the capacity for autonomous institution-building, pedagogical innovation, and direct political engagement.
The elevation of Ibrahim Mahama to the number one spot serves as the ultimate validation of this new model of influence: an artist who uses global commercial success as a direct tool for repatriating cultural capital and building sustainable, independent art ecosystems on the continent. This is mirrored by the structural power of curators like Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung and the significant influence of Marie Hélène Pereira, who are actively transforming major European and global institutional platforms with decolonial methodologies, ensuring that African intellectual traditions are at the forefront of global exhibition-making. Meanwhile, figures like the CATPC demonstrate how art can be a direct engine for reparative land justice, transforming critique into tangible material and economic change.
This cohort’s commitment to critical self-determination—creating platforms like the SCCA, RAW Material Company, and LagosPhoto—ensures that the flow of influence is no longer unidirectional, but radiates outward from hubs like Dakar, Tamale, and Kumasi, engaging with but not dependent upon the historic Western centres. The 2025 list confirms that the most compelling and consequential art and discourse of our time are those rigorously engaged with the complex legacies of colonialism, trade, and social justice. The African vanguard is not waiting to be invited to the table; they are building a new house of culture where the terms of artistic, intellectual, and economic power are being rewritten from the ground up, guaranteeing their enduring impact on the global art landscape.
