Every year, T: The New York Times Style Magazine comes up with a list of “The Greats.” The entire staff gets together and makes suggestions of people who are admired and who inspire. The list of Greats is then paired with writers and photographers.
So who made the Greats of 2017 list this year?
Nicki Minaj
Roxanne Gay writes that Minaj has demonstrated a “discipline and intelligence that is rare among other pop stars of her generation” throughout her career. Minaj has passed many milestones in her career already: surpassing Aretha Franklin for the most appearances by a woman on the Billboard Hot 100, becoming the first woman artist signed to Young Money, just to name a couple. She never makes compromises, and she knows who she is.
Park Chan-wook
Chan-wook is one of — if not the — most famous film director in South Korea. He is known both nationally and internationally for his Vengeance trilogy. Alexander Chee writes that these movies helped bring Korean cinema to a world stage. Now, he has turned his attention to sex, creating Aghassi (The Handmaiden), which is an adaption of Sarah Water’s 2002 novel Fingersmith. The film has been “hailed as an erotic masterpiece” worldwide.
Amy Adams
The actress consistently shows that she is not to be underestimated. She have five Oscar nominations under her belt, and Manohla Dargis writes that part of her greatness as an actor “is that she gives herself over to her roles so completely.” In person, Dargis said, the actress conveys “appealing resilience.”
Claes Oldenburg
The sculptor has lived in New York for more than 60 years. In fact, the only permanent public artwork in New York City is by Oldenburg. He is now 88 and one of the last remaining founders of the Pop juggernaut “that plowed into art history in the early 1960s” writes Randy Kennedy. His legacy is undeniable, and his impact on his successors is clearly evident in their work.
Stephen Sonheim
At 87-years-old, Sonheim has had an immense impact on American musical theater. So large in fact, that Lin-Manuel Miranda said it is “hard to overemphasize” his impact. His work is discussed in the same way Shakespeare’s or Dickens’ work is talked about: he is a “master of his form, both invisible within his work and everywhere at once.”
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Both an award-winning novelist and a public intellectual, Adichie is a “defining voice on race and gender” in the digital age. Dave Eggers, who has known Adichie for about 10 years, writes that she is considered a global icon of feminism.
Dries Van Noten
As a Belgian designer, Van Noten has spent decades creating fashion for “thinking women.” Hanya Yanagihara writes that he has “come to stand for independence.” Yanagihara also writes that no living designer understands color in the same way Van Noten does, but more importantly, he doesn’t make clothes for a woman’s body as much as he makes clothes for a woman’s mind.
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