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Last month London magazine Art Review published its fifth annual list of who it considers to be the 100 most powerful people in the contemporary art world. Topping the list is French collector Francois Pinault, who also owns Gucci and the Christie's auction houses.
Most of the list is a who's who of American and British art, and British newspaper the Guardian declared the list confirms the continued dominance of London and New York as capitals of the art scene.
But that probably only confirms their bias in maintaining a trans-Atlantic perspective of the world, when these centres have long-since ceased to be a centre of gravity in global politics and contemporary art.
So if these people control what happens throughout the art world, do they wield any power in in New Zealand? Auckland art dealer Ivan Anthony doubts they have much influence here at all. "It's a whole different ball game." he says.
Collector and philanthropist Jenny Gibbs, who established the New Gallery and helps to fund projects such as New Zealand's presence at Venice, would be a prime candidate for a New Zealand list, says Anthony.
Gibbs knows many of the people in the Art Review top 20, of whom she says curator Robert Storr (number 13) is one of the few people of immediate relevance to New Zealanders.
He judged the Walters Prize in 2004 and is director of the next Venice Biennale. Art Review describes him as "the leading intellectual of contemporary art" and notes that, as well as being appointed Dean of Yale School of Art, he will be the first American to direct the Venice Biennale.
There are two more international figures, who are not in Art Review's list, who Gibbs thinks have direct relevance to New Zealand - Victoria Lynn, who is curating the next Auckland Triennial, and Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev, who judged this year's Walters Prize and is curator of the next Sydney Biennale.
Most of the list's upper echelons are people with considerable financial resources and influence, including collectors like Eli Broad (number 6) and Charles Saatchi (number 7), or those involved with the art market, such as auction houses and art fairs Art Basel and London's Frieze art fair.
Gibbs says the Basel and Frieze art fairs are beginning to affect New Zealand. "They have potential influence in the sense that they can admit New Zealand dealers, and therefore artists, to their activities," she says.
Artspace director Brian Butler, who is proudly from Los Angeles, is cynical of the New York-London axis the list promotes.
"Eugene Tan, who just did the Singapore Biennale, is interesting, yet he would never show up on this list because it is Trans-Atlantic-centric," he says.
Butler is also suspicious that most of the top places seem to be there for financial reasons.
"Is it possible to move away from a market-centric, trans-Atlantic, New York-London based economy, to a trans-Pacific centre?" he asks. "I think the Trans-Pacific world should go, 'Screw you, we don't need you people'."
Gibbs questions whether directors of public institutions overseas (the Tate's Nicholas Serota is number three and MOMA's Glenn Lowry is number four) have the same kind of influence as local directors, who have a much more hands-on role.
With fellow Auckland collector and philanthropist Robin Congreve, who was instrumental in establishing the Walters Prize, Gibbs is a member of MOMA's international council, so has had first-hand experience of trying to get work into its collection.
"The directors of institutions here have far more involvement in who gets big shows and retrospectives, unlike MOMA and the Tate," she says, nominating public gallery directors Chris Saines, Priscilla Pitts, Rhana Devenport and Jenny Harper as having a direct role in what happens here.
She also believes Butler and previous Artspace director Tobias Berger have put independent gallery Artspace on a similar footing.
Saines says a core group of art dealers have the biggest effect on the fortunes of New Zealand's art scene.
"Among a clutch of the top performers are those whose artists are continually picked up by curators for inclusion in major exhibitions here and abroad, who leverage the big private and corporate commissions, and whose artists always form part of the major public and private collections," he says.
"The best dealer galleries can be just as much gatekeepers and cultural shift-shapers as the best public galleries, be they the smaller and faster experimental spaces or the larger and slower collecting institutions. That's probably just as true here as it is in New York or London."
It is interesting, then, to note that many dealers have a background in public galleries, including John McCormack, who was director of director of Dunedin Public Art Gallery and the Govett-Brewster Art Gallery, as well as associate director of the MCA in Sydney. He is also chair of the College of Governors of the Arts Foundation of New Zealand, which issues the Laureates and Icon Awards.
Gibbs also nominates dealers Gow Langsford, Hamish McKay, Jensen Gallery, Sue Crockford and Michael Lett as playing a big part in promoting New Zealand art internationally.
One senior dealer deserves a special mention for his long-term influence - Wellington's Peter McLeavey, whose early adoption of significant figures such as Colin McCahon have given him a formidable reputation for selecting artists.
"The history of Peter McLeavey's gallery is really a history of New Zealand art," she says. "He has an impeccable eye."
Ivan Anthony worked for McLeavey for a long time and it seems some of that acumen must have rubbed off, as Anthony has represented all of the Walters Prize winners.
"He's a very clever operator," says Anthony, who has had several of his artists added to McLeavey's stable. "In a lot of cases he was not the discoverer. In a lot of cases he was just rigorous at getting around and knowing what was going on, then picking up artists when he saw them."
It could be argued that the collecting institutions which buy work from the dealers decide which artists will be seen in the nation's galleries. Charlotte Huddleston, for example, who has been appointed contemporary curator at Te Papa, effectively holds the nation's chequebook when she goes shopping for the national museum's collection.
But Anthony thinks curators are not as accountable as private dealers and collectors. He says dealers and collectors don't have as much power here as in Europe and America.
"We tend to be treated with suspicion," he says. "[With] dealers and collectors, you put your money where your mouth is. You say you're going to run with this and, if you're wrong, everyone sees it.
"There are some notable scandals of curators, particularly, getting it totally and completely wrong then sliding out of it. But we get effectively hung out to dry if we make the wrong decisions."
But what of the influence of artists, whose careers the rest of the industry are hanging their reputations on? In the Art Review top 100, 24 per cent are artists, and only two scrape in at the bottom of the top 10 - Bruce Nauman and Jeff Koons, in that order.
In New Zealand, senior figures such as Billy Apple, Ralph Hotere, Bill Hammond and Richard Killeen continue to be an inspiration to successive generations of artists and therefore continue to have a hold on the future of New Zealand art. Plus, of course, the late Colin McCahon and Gordon Walters, both of whom still have a strong presence.
For Anthony, there is no question about which sector of the industry should be at the top of the list: "If you are talking about power in the art world, the source power is artists. That's number one, that's the primary point."
What: Art Review's The Power 100
