Singapore’s Ho Tzu Nyen and Eugene Tan make ArtReview’s Power 100 list

SINGAPORE – Singaporean artist Ho Tzu Nyen and Dr Eugene Tan – who is director and chief executive at both the National Gallery Singapore (NGS) and the Singapore Art Museum (SAM) – have been named among the top 100 most influential people in the art world by leading contemporary art magazine ArtReview on Dec 4.

Ho, who leapt from 72nd place in 2024 to fifth spot on the annual Power 100 list in 2025, has had a banner year.

The 49-year-old tells The Straits Times: “I’m grateful to be acknowledged and it has been an intense few years of new opportunities, beginning with the tour of Time & The Tiger at the end of 2023.”

His sprawling and lauded mid-career exhibition Time & The Tiger, curated by Dr Tan and first staged at SAM in November 2023, has been touring internationally to the Art Sonje Centre in Seoul, the Hessel Museum of Art in New York, Mudam Luxembourg, and is now showing at its final stop at the Hamburger Kunsthalle in Hamburg, Germany.

In 2024, he won the coveted Chanel Next Prize, which came with €100,000 (S$150,900) to realise his artistic projects.

Ho was also appointed the 2026 artistic director of the Gwangju Biennale, the oldest biennale in Asia, set to open its 16th edition in September 2026, and was one of six medallists in the established artist category at the inaugural Art Basel Awards. He was also commissioned to make work by Hong Kong’s M+ museum and the Luma Foundation in Arles, France.

He says of his busy 2025: “One of the most memorable moments of the year was when I was setting up for the new commission Phantoms Of Endless Day for the Luma Foundation. The work used artificial intelligence (AI) systems to complete a feature film I worked on more than 10 years ago. It completed a decade-long cycle for me while opening up to all kinds of strange and new pathways.”

Meanwhile, Dr Tan – who made ST’s Life Power List in 2024 – retains his 24th spot from 2024. It is the 52-year-old museum director’s 12th time on the list and his highest ranking so far.

Ho, in a 2023 interview with ST, called Dr Tan “a constant presence, a fellow traveller and a witness to his adventures”. The two friends met after Ho’s first exhibition, Utama – Every Name In History Is I, at The Substation in 2003.

ArtReview described Dr Tan, who also became head of the Visual Arts Cluster (comprising NGS, SAM and STPI Creative Workshop And Gallery) in 2024, as “an astute operator, balancing the conservatism of the government with the more liberal leanings of the local art world”.

This ranking comes on the heels of the opening of a landmark exhibition by NGS and the Asian Civilisations Museum in Mexico City exploring the connections between South-east Asia and Latin America on Dec 4.

In 2025, the NGS celebrated its 10th anniversary and organised a major rehang of the Singapore gallery, now known as Singapore Stories: Pathways And Detours In Art, which has highlighted more women and minority artists than its inaugural edition.

Curator Amal Khalaf, who is half Bahraini and half Singaporean, debuts on the list at No. 43. In 2025, she co-curated the Sharjah Biennial and curated Bangkok-based video and performance art series Ghost:2568. She is also the co-artistic director of the 2026 Busan Biennale.

At the top of ArtReview’s list is Ghanaian artist and institution maker Ibrahim Mahama, the first African to top the list. He will stage his first solo exhibition in Singapore, Digging Stars, from Jan 13 to Feb 8 at the fourth edition of The Pierre Lorinet Collection during 2026 Singapore Art Week.

Other figures who made the list include Sheikha Hoor Al Qasimi, director of the Sharjah Biennial and founder of the Sharjah Art Foundation (No. 3); Ethiopia-born New York artist Julie Mehretu (No. 13); Indian artist collective Camp, whose work is on show at the Singapore Biennale (No. 51); Japanese gallerist Atsuko Ninagawa, who launched Art Week Tokyo (No. 62); and the influential American queer and gender theorist Judith Butler (No. 89).