ArtReview Power 100 has moving image art on the rise

ArtReview, a legacy magazine dedicated to informing the public about the contemporary art world, has published its Power 100 list of the most influential people in contemporary art for the year 2024. This year's edition of the list includes four moving image artists among the top 10, underlining the importance and impact that film art and video art continue to have on the contemporary art scene. The four individuals/collectives are: Steve McQueen, Forensic Architecture, Wael Shawky, and John Akomfrah.

Steve McQueen is a British filmmaker who has been praised for his gritty portrayals of important contemporary social issues. McQueen had two solo shows this year at the two New York locations of Dia Art Foundation. This year he released the epic four-hour documentary Occupied City, in which he traces the locations that appear in Bianca Stigter's book Atlas of an Occupied City, Amsterdam 1940-1945 (2019). He also premiered the wartime film Blitz, which follows the adventures of a young boy seeking to return to his mother as the horrors of the German aerial bombardment in London unfold around him.

Forensic Architecture is an artist collective and agency that conducts research into the human rights violations that happen around the world. Founded in 2010 by the Israeli architect Eyal Weizman, they utilize advanced technology and interdisciplinary creative research to generate evidence documenting what they call ‘state and corporate violence’. FA has shows currently on view at Museum of Contemporary Art Skopje, Irish Museum of Modern Art in Dublin and Wellcome Collection in London.

The Egyptian artist Wael Shawky has had several recent exhibitions which have platformed his moving image practice. His video installation Drama 1882, an operatic retelling of the nationalist Urabi Revolt against British and French influence in Egypt, was his submission to this year's edition of the Venice Biennale. Another of his works, I Am Hymns of the New Temples, a film about Greek mythology and how mythology is disseminated, debuted at the Museo di Palazzo Grimani in Venice.

The legendary Ghanaian-British film artist John Akomfrah represented the UK at the 60th Venice Biennale with the massive 62-screen video installation titled Listening All Night to the Rain. The work is a poignant meditation on the artist's preferred themes of memory, migration, racial injustice and climate change. Recent shows include at Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington DC, National Museum of African Art in Washington DC and Schirn Kunsthalle in Frankfurt.

The inclusion of these and other moving image artists in the ArtReview Power 100 list, such as Sammy Baloji, Hito Steyerl and Isaac Julien, spotlights the increasing centrality of film, video and digital art today. The list likewise indicates a continual shift in the geographical focus of contemporary narratives away from the West and towards the Global South and the Middle East, platforming artistic voices and perspectives which have often been sidelined in the art world. For the full list, visit the ArtReview site.