This post was originally published on artnews.com
I’m a fan of list-making, and most people in the art world are not, because this is a space, after all, where that form of writing is considered déclassé at best. And so, when I brought the idea to rank the best 100 artworks of the 21st century to a meeting of ARTnews and Art in America editors last fall, I expected that everyone would consider the concept gauche. That wasn’t what happened: the editors enthusiastically supported the idea of such a list. But this, it turned out, was one of the last things we’d immediately agree upon.
In the ensuing months, we traded Word docs, spreadsheets, and Slack messages filled with ideas for what should go on the list. There was little overlap among our suggestions, and there were a lot of works to sift through. We spent hours debating which artworks to even consider as a group, calling on editors to defend their proposed pieces before those assembled.
If the argument was compelling, the work was moved onward. If it wasn’t, that work was tossed out of consideration. It was tough going for some really great art, and it was a process that generated no small degree of collegiate discord. (I am still embittered over being disallowed from listing a painting by Michel Majerus—I know I’m right and my colleagues are wrong, but I say that with love.)
We set down some criteria to limit ourselves. Only one piece per artist was allowed to be listed, and the artworks reviewed had to be produced between 2000 and now—with the exception of one piece that made our list, Walid Raad’s Atlas Group project, whose dating frequently changes as part of its genius conceit. The artworks had to speak to something, whether it was an informal movement or a tendency that was in the air, and they had to emblematize a sensibility that was distinctly of this century. We did our best to focus on individual artworks that stood on their own, in the absence of other related pieces, which meant that some truly great artists wouldn’t figure here. And we determined that the works considered need not be influential or even widely seen—they simply had to be high-quality.
So far, so simple. But we quickly realized there were complications: some works functioned best in series, which seemed to preclude their being listed as discrete pieces. Moreover, some works belonged to projects or series begun in the 1990s, before the start of our purview, and that raised questions about their inclusion. And how best to be global? We are New York–based journalists without travel budgets, after all.
In the end, we decided to rely upon what we know best: the objects that we saw firsthand. That means our list is highly subjective and in no way all-encompassing. Another publication’s list—that of, say, a Berlin-based magazine, or even another New York–based magazine—might look entirely different. We thought this was totally acceptable.
Our list provides only a partial view of recent art history. Where, you might ask, is relational aesthetics? Not here, for the most part, save for one memorable Tino Sehgal performance. What about zombie formalism and the recent figuration craze? Also not here, mostly. And what about famed artworks like Damien Hirst’s bejeweled skull and Anne Imhof’s performance for the 2017 German Pavilion at the Venice Biennale? Absent as well—we decided they weren’t for us.
But we weren’t trying to put forward every notable artwork made since 2000, since that would require a much larger list. And besides, the art world has grown too big for one editorial team to see everything. That may not be such a bad thing.
Here’s a thought experiment: Imagine you are an editor at ARTnews 75 years ago, in 1950, and say you want to take on the same project. You would have a much easier time nailing down the 100 best works of the 20th century so far because there was a good chance they were exhibited in New York, Paris, or London, and were likely by an artist based in one of those cities. You would have no problem picking out the great works—there would be no question about ranking Jackson Pollock’s Autumn Rhythm (Number 30) highly, even if that painting was made that very year—and you’d know exactly which modernist movements you needed to reflect.
In 1950, the art world was small. But in 2025, that is no longer the case. Artists are based all around the world, in locales ranging from Buenos Aires to Beirut, and biennials have come to reflect the breadth of today’s art scene, with the most recent editions of Documenta and the Venice Biennale both largely focused on the Global South, an exceedingly large swath of the world that has historically been kept out of our Eurocentric canon. To see everything is now difficult, if not outright unfeasible; to create a 100-work list that reflects it all is damn near impossible.
Perhaps we will look upon our list in 2050 with embarrassment, cringing over how much great art we failed to notice. Or maybe our future selves will be content with what we did manage to capture about art in the 21st century.
Either way, the fact is this: we are bound to overlook something, and that—in my view, anyway—is quite alright. The volume of noteworthy art is greater than ever before, and our list, even at a monumental 100 works, with some 15,000 words of copy to accompany them, looks puny in comparison. Here’s to learning about all the great art we missed in the years to come.