Time released its annual Time 100 list on Friday, featuring the magazine’s picks for the most influential people of the year, divided into six categories: artists, innovators, titans, icons, leaders, and pioneers.
Four art world figures made it onto this year’s list: visual artists Yoshitomo Nara and Mickalene Thomas (the latter perplexingly categorized as an “innovator”), architect Annabelle Selldorf, and Miranda July, a novelist and filmmaker who has also dabbled in performance art.
Time‘s list also includes corporate CEOs, half a dozen members of the Trump administration, fashion designers, and athletes. The Time 100 website features write-ups on each individual by a fellow celebrity with a connection to the person in question (eg. Amy Poehler on Rashida Jones, Gael Garcia Bernal on Diego Luna, Allyson Felix on Serena Williams).
But back to the artists.
Musician Alicia Keys, who with her husband Swizz Beats is a top collector, writes that Mickalene Thomas is “a mastermind at conveying poignant messages through striking visuals, and stepping into one of her shows feels like entering another world.” Actress Molly Ringwald writes that “July doesn’t just tap into the zeitgeist; she helps shape it.” Photographer Annie Leibowitz writes of Selldorf’s reknown “for reimagining monumental architecture.” And designer Stella McCartney on Nara: His work is not only childlike, innocent, and direct—it also carries messages that we need to hear, presented in a way we can digest with humor and clarity.