When women's movements challenge the forms and nature of political life, the contemporary play of powers and power relations, they are in fact working towards a modification of women's status. On the other hand, when women within these same movements aim simply for a change in the distribution of power, leaving intact the power structure itself, then they are subjecting themselves, deliberately or not, to a phallocentric order.
—Luce Irigaray (1974/1996: 241)
Michael Shnayerson opens his successful book Boom: Mad Money, Mega Dealers, and the Rise of Contemporary Art (2019) with a prologue describing “The Kings and Their Court.” The kings in question are the mega dealers of contemporary art: Larry Gagosian, David Zwirner, Iwan Wirth, and Arne Glimcher. It is interesting that the book opens with four men as defining the artworld today, when the surrounding pages reveal the extraordinary impact of women in creating and transforming this very...