Women’s Art

The list is headed by Marina Abramovic, a 70-year-old artist who has made a huge contribution to the development of performance in its contemporary sense. Abramović was born in Belgrade and her parents were guerrillas during the Second World War. She started her art career at the age of 14 – and since then the themes of pain, aggression and suffering have occupied a special place in her performances. What Abramovic has not done in the last 45 years: at the Venice Biennale, she washed a mountain of bloody bones in memory of the victims of the war in Yugoslavia; together with her partner Ulaj, she breathed each other’s breaths through a special device while both fainted from lack of oxygen; she sat for a few days at MOMA without moving and allowed any viewer to look into her eyes and many, many other things. Abramovich is already an art world legend and a few years ago American director Robert Wilson staged “Life and Death of Marina Abramovich”.

Nita Ambani is a philanthropist, a representative of one of the most famous Indian families in the world. Her husband, Mukesh Ambani, is India’s richest man, an oil magnate whose fortune is estimated at $25 billion by Forbes. Nita Ambani, 53, spends her husband’s money wisely: she is one of the trustees of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and a major art collector. In early 2017, Nita Ambani received an award from the Metropolitan Museum of Art for her contribution to the arts and became the first woman from Southeast Asia to receive the award.

In 2014, the art world flew extraordinary news – the new director of the famous auction house Christie’s first became a woman, a Frenchwoman Patricia Barbizet. Before that, Patricia worked for several years in top positions at the conglomerate Kering, owned by Francois Pinault. Patricia Barbizet is 62 years old, born in Paris, graduated from business school, and started her career at Renault. Since 1989, Patricia has been working with François Pinault. Her interests include not only business and art but also music: Patricia is on the Board of Directors of the Paris Opera and Philharmonic. Today the auction house Christie’s, which she heads, is the leader of the world art market. Although Barbizet has a reputation as a financier and a tough businessman, art plays a special role in her life: her mother is the famous farmer Monica Cartier, and all her childhood Patricia spent at contemporary art exhibitions.

Which year the list of the most influential people in the art world, along with gallery owner Larry Gagosyan and artist Ay Weiwei, is 31-year-old Sheikha Al Mayassa, who heads the National Museum of Qatar and the Qatar Museums Authority. Sheikha Al Mayassa is the 14th daughter of Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al-Thani, Emir of Qatar. She studied political science and literature in the States, then graduated from the Sorbonne and returned to her native Qatar. Today, Sheikha Al Mayassa is responsible, among other things, for purchasing works of art for museums in Qatar, spending about $250 million per year from the national budget (Qatar promises to increase this amount to 600 million soon). One of the girl’s latest purchases is Paul Cezanne’s painting “Players in the Card”: for this “operation”, ArtReview magazine put Sheikha in first place in the ranking of the world’s most influential art people in 2016. Despite Sheikha’s great interest in the works of the world’s famous artists, the girl also supports Arab art, including holding exhibitions of women artists from the Middle East at the National Museum of Qatar.

The obviously unbelievable: on the list of the most important women in the art world is a street artist who hides her face. For the skill of conspiracy, Bambi has already been nicknamed “Banksy in a skirt” – in honor of the most famous street artist Banksy. Bambi, presumably 35, graduated from the famous Central Martins College and started her career at London’s Walton Fine Arts gallery, with which Jeff Koons and Banksy once collaborated. Bambi specializes in portraits of celebrities: graffiti portraits of Duchess Catherine and Prince William, Cara Delevan, I Wavey, David Beckham, and other celebrities by her are scattered all over London. Unofficially, her works are in the personal collections of Brad Pitt, Adele, and Rihanna. Relevance is an important feature of Bambi’s work, and the artist reacts to political and social developments in the world. Thus, in early 2017 on one of the streets of London appeared her work “Lee Lee Land”: in the famous “dancing” pose of the heroes of the musical “La La Land”, the artist depicted Donald Trump and the British Prime Minister Teresa Mae.

This year a large personal exhibition of Bambi was held during the 57th Venice Biennale.