Contemporary Artists

This week we were asked to come up with a list of contemporary artists that are currently living and/or emerging into the art world presently. I then realized how very few names I could come up with. This seems odd to me. If I were a music student, I feel like I would be up to date on latest performers, both famous and obscure. Our culture promotes the music industry through mass media continuously, but rarely the visual arts. Maybe this is because there is more money to be made in working with the music industry, but in general, I feel like there are not many ways to become well versed with the current art scene unless you are working directly in it. Whereas contemporary music seems to be readily available to any avid enthusiast, current visual art seems to be the deceptive "cat person" of the arts. Many times I feel like it is a secret society that you must be invited into in order to have a depth of knowledge of its current on-goings.
So then I thought to myself what do people do these days when they are unsure about something? They google it. So I did too, searching with phrases like, "top artists of last 20 years," and "current famous artists." To be honest I wasn't all that impressed with the results that I found. I was familiar with some of their names and work, but for the most part wasn't thrilled by any of it. The artists I came up with are people that I know from home, who have been fairly successful and whose work I enjoy and respect. I have heard of them by word of mouth, and talked with them in aisle 4 of my local grocery store. So where is the portal to discover all of the other great artists out there?