At the start of 2020, it was impossible to predict that this year would transform the art world as we knew it. By March, the COVID-19 pandemic began to throw entire years of museum, gallery, and biennial exhibitions into the balance, and it may have forever rocked the international art fair circuit. In June, the Black Lives Matter movement swept through the art world and ushered in a long overdue reckoning with the inequity and systemic racism of the art industry. The artists below were at the forefront of these waves of change. They created fresh work to live up to this moment and launched fundraisers and initiatives to aid victims of COVID-19, promote BIPOC organizations, and lift up fellow artists. Some managed to set head-spinning auction records and opened spectacular museum shows; others set career milestones and earned due recognition for their longstanding, influential practices. They represent a small fraction of the artists who inspired us this year, though they stand out as leaders who will surely guide us through the next one and whatever it may bring.
After joining David Zwirner last year as the first Chinese artist represented by the gallery, Liu Ye has continued to exhibit around the world. “Storytelling,” the Beijing-based artist’s solo show at Fondazione Prada in Milan, on view through January 2021, charts Liu’s artistic production from 1992 to the present. In his debut solo exhibition with David Zwirner in New York, Liu presents new works from his “Flower,” “Book Painting,” and “Banned Book” series. While the latter two bodies of work meditate on the formal and cultural qualities of books, “Flower” evokes European still-life painting and traditional Chinese paintings of flowers. Over the summer, Liu dominated the secondary market for contemporary art, demonstrating sustained interest in the 56-year-old’s oeuvre. At Christie’s, Mondrian in London (2001) sold for HK$22.9 million (US$3 million) and Wie Germalt (1993) sold for HK$13.3 million (US$1.7 million). Meanwhile, at Phillips, Liu’s Choir of Angels (Red) (1999) sold for HK$27.7 million (US$3.6 million). Yet perhaps most noteworthy was Leave Me in the Dark (2009)—depicting a lone female traveler at a monumental scale that’s rarely seen in Liu’s practice—which sold for HK$45.4 million (US$5.8 million) at Sotheby’s, eclipsing its high estimate of HK$35 million (US$4.5 million).