Hoor Al Qasimi Rises to the Top of ArtReview’s Power 100

The artist, curator, and institutional director has been a regular on ArtReview's Power 100 for the last 14 years, but this is the first time she has topped the chart, moving up from 36th place on last year's list.

According to ArtReview, the Power 100 list, shaped by a panel of around 40 art world participants, considers three criteria for inclusion: being active over the past 12 months, shaping current developments in art, and making a global impact.

'Al Qasimi remains one of the few voices still prepared to use the platform art (and royal privilege) affords them in order to express their opinions directly and to keep discussions that most people allow to fade away firmly in the spotlight, whether they concern the current carnage in Palestine and Lebanon or those suffering from other conflicts across the globe,' Mark Rappolt, Editor-in-Chief at ArtReview, told Ocula.

Born in 1980 into the ruling family of Sharjah, United Arab Emirates, Hoor Al Qasimi has consistently championed the Gulf region, overseeing the Sharjah Biennial since 2003—at 22 years old—and founding the Sharjah Foundation in 2009. As a curator, she steered the U.A.E. Pavilion at the 56th Venice Biennale in 2015 and, more recently, the Sharjah Biennial's highly acclaimed 30th edition in 2023, which directly referenced curator Okwui Enwezor. She described coming across the late curator's curation in Documenta11 in 2002 as an eye-opening experience that shaped her role as Director of the Sharjah Biennial.

'I had just graduated from Slade, so I went to the exhibition, curated by Okwui Enwezor, and I saw that this was political and started asking: why isn't our biennial like this?' Al Qasimi told Ocula in 2013.

For Sharjah Biennial 16 in 2025, Al Qasimi has appointed an all-female curatorial team that includes Sri Lanka's Natasha Ginwala, Turkish curator Zeynep Öz, Indonesian curator Alia Swastika, Bahraini-Singaporean artist Amal Khalaf, and Aotearoa New Zealand artist Megan Tamati-Quennell.

Her influence, however, extends beyond the Emirates. She curated the second edition of Lahore Biennale (LB02) in 2020 and was recently appointed artistic director of Aichi Triennale 2025 in Japan. Fluent in Japanese—as well as Arabic, English, and Mandarin—she is the first artistic director chosen from outside Japan since the Aichi Triennale's establishment in 2010.

Earlier this year, the Biennale of Sydney announced Al Qasimi as the artistic director of its 25th edition, which will take place in 2026. Most recently, she curated the first major survey exhibition of paintings by Māori artist Emily Karaka, presented at Sharjah Art Foundation (2024).

To add to a long list of accolades, Al Qasimi serves as President of the International Biennial Association and president of The Africa Institute in Sharjah while also sitting on the board of the non-profit organisation Ashkal Alwan in Beirut, among other associations. —[O]