Meet 6 Visionary Women Shaping the Art World in 2025

Es Devlin

It is not easy to encapsulate the trailblazing work of British designer Es Devlin, who has been rewriting the rules of stagecraft and set design since the mid-1990s. Renowned for her innovative and immersive creations, she maintains a multifaceted practice that masterfully integrates light, projected film, audio, and kinetic sculptural forms to produce visually stunning and emotionally impactful experiences that transport the viewer to another realm.

Cutting her teeth on London’s theater world, devising experimental sets for the National Theatre and the Royal Opera House, Devlin has since become the go-to collaborator for talents such as Beyoncé, Adele, U2, and The Weeknd to create their stage shows and tours. The visionary also orchestrated landmark events like the 2012 London Olympics closing ceremony and the 2022 Super Bowl halftime show. Over the past decade, she has adapted her craft to address poignant issues, formulating large-scale installations that explore biodiversity, linguistic diversity, and the intersection of AI and human creativity to inspire audiences to reimagine their connections to each other and to the planet.

Looking back: In 2023, “An Atlas of Es Devlin,” a major retrospective at the Cooper Hewitt Museum in New York, traced 30 years of her archives, mapping creative through lines from her earliest teenage paintings to her most recent monumental works.

Latest milestone: The global artistic lead of the Women’s Pavilion in collaboration with Cartier for Expo 2025, Devlin produced a unique sound installation, inviting visitors to the Osaka, Japan, exhibition to share their names, making their identity a part of the narrative. “We have used technology that allows each guest to have an intensely personal experience where the audio will follow their journey through the pavilion,” says Devlin. “The Women’s Pavilion is reflective of my evolving practice as an artist: I view each audience, each group of visitors, as a rehearsal community. Through participatory encounters we aim to address the urgent climate and civilizational crises in which we are all entangled.”

Tokini Peterside-Schwebig

Energetic and vibrant, Lagos, Nigeria, is quickly becoming one of the most exciting emerging art capitals in the world. A large part of that boom can be credited to Tokini Peterside-Schwebig, founder of ART X Lagos, the leading international art fair in West Africa. A cultural entrepreneur and strategic adviser dedicated to shaping Africa’s narrative through the arts, she has long worked to draw positive attention to the city. “Lagos has so much to offer,” she says. “I wanted to help secure its place on the global cultural map.”

Running from November 6 to 9, ART X Lagos celebrates its tenth anniversary this year. “There’s such a dynamic and nimble scene here on the continent led by creatives who want to disrupt and challenge the way things can be done. It’s continuing to rapidly develop,” says Peterside-Schwebig, who is also a prominent collector and serves on the boards of Yinka Shonibare’s GAS Foundation and Prune Nourry’s Catharsis Arts Foundation, among other education and corporate initiatives.

Broader scope: Beyond the annual event, Peterside-Schwebig is building an ecosystem that empowers African makers. The ART X Lagos umbrella also encompasses ART X Live!, which supports rising musicians and artists; the Access ART X Prize, an annual award benefiting emerging talents across Africa and its diaspora; and ART X Cinema, a showcase dedicated to independent African filmmaking. The platform has also recently launched a school program for underprivileged children. “In the past decade, we have developed an experience that really speaks to our community specifically,” says Peterside-Schwebig, who was named a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader in 2023.

Shifting viewpoints: Peterside-Schwebig aims to not only nurture talent but also change perspectives, “creating an opportunity that allows the world to see the Nigeria that we see,” she says. “This country, despite what international headlines may tell you, has so much to give, so much to offer—not only across Africa—but as a potential powerhouse for people like us, of African descent, across the world.”

Mariët Westermann

When Mariët Westermann first visited the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum at age 18 on a trip to New York from the Netherlands, she was struck by the towering, swirling spiral form of the Frank Lloyd Wright building. Returning as the new director and CEO of the institution and its foundation in 2024, she remains just as awestruck. The first woman to hold the position, Westermann, a trained art historian with a doctorate in the field, directs the New York flagship and oversees the foundation and the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice; she also provides collaborative leadership for the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao and the under-construction Guggenheim Abu Dhabi. “The Guggenheim is and always has been the museum of the art of today but also the place where the art of yesterday is kept and promoted,” says Westermann, who helped establish New York University in Abu Dhabi in 2010 before serving as its vice chancellor and chief executive. “My job is to make sure this constellation of museums work well together and that in each one of these sites people can have transformative, engaging, inspiring experiences.”

Evolving landscape: “One of the greatest and most exciting developments over the last 40 years is that museums have become more self-aware and they are not just these owners of knowledge in a high-minded way,” she says. “They harbor it, they preserve it, but they also need to share it to have relevance in the world. That mission is critical to all museums now.”

Building a community: “We connect people to art and the artists who make it, and therefore we also connect people to each other. We actively reach into communities to encourage them and welcome them to the museum to foster a connection,” says Westermann. “Everyone on earth has already some kind of relationship to art even if they don’t know it.

Marilyn Minter

For the past four decades, Marilyn Minter has been examining the complexities of glamour, consumerism, and the male gaze in popular culture with her striking photorealist paintings, sexually charged photography, and poignant videos. “I’ve always tried to make an image of the times we live in,” says the artist, whose instantly recognizable work is rendered with a hyperglossy, almost slick aesthetic that is equally alluring and unsettling. “I thought, How can I add to this long history of photography and advertising? I’ll take pictures of things I know exist but are never seen because they’re not commercial,” says Minter, who depicts close-ups of bejeweled high-heeled feet sullied after a night dancing or women’s faces smeared with makeup and sweat. “People may not want to see it, but I make it so beautiful.”

Activist at heart: Outside her artistic practice, Minter has been a vocal advocate for women’s rights, anti-racism, and other social justice issues for decades. “I have always
fought for progressive causes. I can’t handle injustice; it is very painful, and I can’t ignore it,” says Minter, whose life and career are being explored in an upcoming documentary codirected by Jennifer Ash Rudick and Amanda M. Benchley and produced by Debi Wisch. “I don’t make overt political art, but I’m interested in culture and in the times we live in—that means politics are going to be in there.”

Ahead of the zeitgeist: It’s as if audiences have always needed to catch up to Minter’s prescient vision. Her early “Porn Grid” works from the 1980s, for example, are now hailed as pivotal despite an initial backlash. “I suppose it’s true for women and people of color—that it takes time to be understood,” Minter muses. “But I’ve always been slightly marginalized, and that has worked for me.”

What’s next: A solo show at Regen Projects in November will incorporate new portraits of her heroes, including Cindy Sherman, Jeff Koons, Nick Cave, and Jane Fonda. She is also adding to her most recent “Odalisque” series, in which she puts a feminist twist on the artistic genre of the reclining nude.

Julia Sherman

An artist turned chef, Julia Sherman has carved out a unique space within New York’s cultural scene. Recently named executive chef and director of artistic partnerships for the 100-seat, OMA-designed restaurant at the city’s freshly renovated New Museum, she will present creative dishes focusing on vegetables and local seafood.

Sherman’s celebrated cookbooks, Salad for President and Arty Parties, chronicle her singular approach to plant-centric cooking interwoven with stories and recipes from iconic artists, including Laurie Anderson, Jordan Casteel, and William Wegman. She has also been a regular collaborator with institutions such as the Getty and MoMA PS1, building community-driven gardens on the rooftops of both museums. “Part of the New Museum project that was so appealing to me was that I had the opportunity to
collaborate with so many artists that I love,” says Sherman, who has commissioned creatives to produce everything from hand-drawn ceramics and one-of-a-kind mugs to coloring sheets for children and menu art.

Cooking philosophy: “The food is sort of experimental home cooking,” says Sherman of the fare she plans to introduce at the New Museum’s all-day café and restaurant. “It is based on what people want to eat every day and something that you’re going to want
to come back to. I want the museum to be somewhere you can just go in your free time. I like this mix of approachability but also want it to be a destination, which is a hard balance to strike. It is about not being too fancy or stuffy and not taking things too seriously.”

Food as muse: “I’ve always felt like somebody who has an excess of creative energy, and that sort of flows between so many different mediums,” says Sherman, who has an MFA from Columbia University. “While I have experimented with so many other
mediums, food has been a through line and a day-to-day occupation.”

Jeanne Greenberg Rohatyn

Known for cultivating radical elegance and shattering art-world boundaries, Jeanne Greenberg Rohatyn stands out as a visionary force. Two decades ago, she launched Salon 94 from her New York City townhouse, later moving the gallery to a striking landmarked building at 3 East 89th Street, where she creates spellbinding, unexpected, and museum-worthy exhibitions that masterfully break down genres and hierarchies.

Greenberg Rohatyn’s distinctive curatorial vision, celebrated for its masterful blend of art and design, wasn’t a calculated strategy but an organic extension of her experiences. Growing up in a St. Louis home filled with artworks by Andy Warhol and Jean-Michel Basquiat displayed alongside furniture by Diego Giacometti and Donald Judd, she developed a fluid perspective. “I’ve always been fascinated with the way that people live with work and how they covet certain objects,” she says.

Selection criteria: At Salon 94, Greenberg Rohatyn works with a diverse array of talent such as Marilyn Minter, Judy Chicago, Laurie Simmons, Huma Bhabha, Magdalene Odundo, Ruby Neri, Raven Halfmoon, Kennedy Yanko, and Mantua Nangala and Warlimpirrnga Tjapaltjarri. Her design program includes icons Max Lamb, Donald Judd, Rick Owens, and Gaetano Pesce. “I’ve been training to look at objects and art for so many years, and I want to surprise myself and push my own taste as well,” explains Greenberg Rohatyn, who says she’s constantly revisiting biases, asking herself, How does it look today? What is the lens now?

Major achievement: For Greenberg Rohatyn, gallery success is multifaceted, extending beyond sales, although those are crucial for sustaining artists. It also involves cultivating a diverse audience, securing institutional placements, and earning critical recognition. “We don’t always accomplish all four things in a show, but when we do it’s super special,” she says. Her proudest achievements, meanwhile, are the private moments shared with artists during a project’s genesis. “Maybe in ten years, we will see that there is a thread that connects it all together,” Greenberg Rohatyn reflects. “We’re living in a global moment, and that is part of our zeitgeist. It’s no longer one voice, and I’m insistent that we hear them all.”

A version of this article first appeared in print in our 2025 Fall Issue under the headline “Women Shaping the Art World.” Subscribe to the magazine.