Defne Ayas | |
---|---|
Born | 1976 Germany |
Nationality | Turkish, Dutch |
Occupation(s) | Curator, Board member of Stedelijk Museum; Rijksakademie; Protocinema; The New Centre for Research & Practice [1] |
Known for | 13th Gwangju Biennale, 6th Moscow Biennale, Kunsthalle for Music, Art in the Age of..., WdWReview, Mindaugas Triennial |
Defne Ayas (born 1976) is a curator, educator, and publisher in the field of contemporary art and its institutions. Ayas directed and advised many institutions and collaborative platforms across the world, including in China, South Korea, United States, Netherlands, Russia, Lithuania and Italy. She is known for conceiving exhibition and biennale formats within diverse geographies, in each instance composing interdisciplinary frameworks that provide historical anchoring and engagement with local conditions. Until June 2021, Ayas was the Artistic Director of 2021 Gwangju Biennale, together with Natasha Ginwala. [2]
She was the director of the Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art in Rotterdam (2012-2017). [3] Towards the end of her tenure in 2017, she announced that the institution had to change its name to dissociate itself from its namesake, the Dutch naval officer Witte Corneliszoon de With. The institution’s decision to change its name was immediately politicized, causing a flurry of controversy in the Netherlands. The decision for a name change was triggered by an Open Letter to Witte de With published on 14 June 2017 by Egbert Alejandro Martina, Ramona Sno, Hodan Warsame, Patricia Schor, Amal Alhaag, and Maria Guggenbichler, and the debates that followed. [4]
Ayas holds a B.A. in Foreign Affairs at University of Virginia and MPS from the Interactive Telecommunications Program New York University. Ayas also completed De Appel Curatorial Programme in Amsterdam in 2005.
As announced by the Gwangju Biennale Foundation, Ayas together with Natasha Ginwala served as the Artistic Directors of the 13th edition of the Gwangju Biennale, in 2020. [5] The curatorial duo announced their plans around the exhibition concept around Minds Rising, Spirits Tuning, that laid emphasis on the dialectical space between communal and artificial intelligence shaped by feminist, queer and indigenous knowledge. [6] The exhibition had to be postponed due to Covid19 pandemic to April 2021. [7] [8]
At Witte de With (2012-2017), Ayas oversaw a diverse exhibition and publication program devoted to established and emerging visual artists, writers, and filmmakers from across the globe. With her tenure starting, she commissioned and curated long-term research projects, solo and group exhibitions and ambitious live performance programs, including Kunsthalle for Music by Ari Benjamin Meyers (2017-2018), [9] The Music of Ramon Raquello and his Orchestra by Eric Baudelaire (2017), Öğüt & Macuga by Ahmet Öğüt and Goshka Macuga (2017), The Ten Murders of Josephine by Rana Hamadeh (2017), As If It Were by Bik Van der Pol(2016), Relational Stalinism -The Musical by Michael Portnoy (2016), three-part Art in the Age of…series (with focus on energy and raw materials, asymmetric warfare and planetary computation) (2015), Bit Rot by Douglas Coupland [10] (2015), Character is Fate by Willem de Rooij (2015), Moderation(s) by artist Heman Chong (with Spring, Hong Kong, 2012-2014); Dai Hanzhi: 5000 Artists (with UCCA, Beijing, 2014); The Humans – a theatrical play by writer and artist Alexandre Singh [11] – and its monthly summits Causeries (2012-2013); the open archive and collection Tulkus 1880 to 2018 by artist Paola Pivi (with Castello di Rivoli and Arthub Asia, 2013-2018), [12] Blueprints by Qiu Zhijie (2012) as well as the award-winning exhibition The Temptation of AA Bronson (2013). [13]
Ayas worked on a number of biennial projects such as: Artistic Director of 2020 Gwangju Biennale, together with Natasha Ginwala, [14] curator of the Pavilion of Turkey [15] in the 56th International Art Exhibition, Venice Biennale; [16] co-curator the 6th Moscow Biennale ACTING IN A CENTER IN A CITY IN THE HEART OF THE ISLAND OF EURASIA [17] (with Nicolaus Schafhausen and Bart de Baere); curator of the 11th Baltic Triennale [18] (with Benjamin Cook, LUX, in collaboration with artists Ieva Misevičiūtė and Michael Portnoy ); co-curator of the Istanbul and Bandung city pavilions as part of the Intercity Project of the 9th Shanghai Biennale. Ayas also served as a curatorial advisor to the 8th Shanghai Biennale (China), and as a publication advisor to the 8th Gwangju Biennale (South Korea) in 2010.
Ayas has been a curator of Performa, the biennial of visual art performance of New York founded by RoseLee Goldberg, since its inception in 2005. At Performa, Ayas organised numerous projects and programs with an international roster of acclaimed artists, architects, and writers; while overseeing biennial’s architecture, writing and print programs and its consortium relations. She remains a Curator-at-Large (as of 2012). [19]
Ayas also co-founded several independent initiatives, including Arthub Asia – an Asia-wide active research and production initiative (with Davide Quadrio) (2007), producing exhibitions and live productions including operas and performances, within the context of China and rest of Asia. Prior to joining Arthub Asia and Performa, she worked as the Public Programs Coordinator of New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York, especially artists presentations and critical debates relating to contemporary art and new media. (2003-2005)
Ayas is the founding co-curator (with late Neery Melkonian) of Blind Dates Project – an artistic platform that is dedicated to tackling what remains of the peoples, places and cultures of the Ottoman Empire (1299-1923). [20]
She served on many juries including 2019 Venice Biennale International Jury, [21] Prince Claus Awards, and The Eliasson Global Leadership Prize of the Tällberg Foundation. Ayas is currently a board member of Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, the Rijksakademie (Amsterdam); Tällberg Foundation; The New Centre for Research & Practice, Collectorspace (Istanbul), Sabanci Museum (Istanbul), and Protocinema (Istanbul); and was also a curator at large of Spring Workshop (Hong Kong). (2013-2017)
When the Istanbul Biennial’s advisory board unanimously chose Ayas as curator for the event’s 2024 edition, the Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts (İKSV) rejected the board’s recommendation and instead appointed Iwona Blazwick; at the time of her selection, Blazwick was a serving member of the advisory panel tasked with choosing a curator for the biennial. [22] Responding to public criticism, Blazwick stepped down in early 2024. [23]
Ayas launched Witte de With’s new online platform WdWReview in 2013, [24] with global editorial desks in Moscow, Istanbul, Delhi/Calcutta, Shanghai, Cairo, and Athens. She is currently, together with writer and curator Adam Kleinman, the Chief Editor of the journal.
She is publisher, editor and contributor to a number of books including: [25]
In addition, Ayas has published in art magazines and journals such as Mousse, Yishu Journal, and Creative Time Reports.
Iwona Maria Blazwick OBE is a British art critic and lecturer. She is currently the Chair of the Royal Commission for Al-'Ula’s Public Art Expert Panel. She was the Director of the Whitechapel Art Gallery in London from 2001 to 2022. She discovered Damien Hirst and staged his first solo show at a public London art gallery, Institute of Contemporary Arts in 1992. She supports the careers of young artists.
Charles Esche is a museum director, curator and writer. His focus is on art and how it reflects, provokes and influences changes in society. He lives between Edinburgh and Eindhoven.
Won-il Rhee was a South Korean digital art curator. He was born and died in Seoul.
Hou Hanru is an international art curator and critic based in San Francisco, Paris and Rome. He was Artistic Director of the National Museum MAXXI in Rome, Italy, from 2013 to 2023.
Dan Cameron is an American contemporary art curator. He has served as senior curator for Next Wave Visual Art at Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM), an annual exhibition of emerging Brooklyn-based artists since 2002. He is also a member of the graduate faculty of School of Visual Arts (SVA) in New York, where he teaches the MFA symposium each spring for second-year students. Cameron may or not still be a member of the National Artist Advisory Committee for the Hermitage Artist Retreat in Florida, but does not sit on the board of Trustees for Anderson Ranch Arts Center in Colorado.
The Gwangju Biennale is a contemporary art biennale founded in September 1995 in Gwangju, South Jeolla province, South Korea. The Gwangju Biennale is hosted by the Gwangju Biennale Foundation and the city of Gwangju. The Gwangju Biennale Foundation also hosts the Gwangju Design Biennale, founded in 2004.
Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev is an Italian-American writer, art historian and exhibition maker who has been serving as the Director of Castello di Rivoli Museo d'Arte Contemporanea and Fondazione Francesco Federico Cerruti in Turin since 2016. She was Edith Kreeger Wolf Distinguished Visiting Professor in Art Theory and Practice at Northwestern University (2013-2019). She is the recipient of the 2019 Audrey Irmas Award for Curatorial Excellence.
Haroon Mirza is a British contemporary visual artist, of Pakistani descent. He is best known for sculptural installations that generate audio compositions.
Anton Vidokle is an artist and founder of e-flux. Born 1965, Vidokle lives in New York and Berlin.
Shilpa Gupta is a contemporary Indian artist based in Mumbai, India. Gupta's artistic practise encompasses a wide range of mediums, including manipulated found objects, video art, interactive computer-based installations, and performance.
Kunstinstituut Melly is a contemporary art gallery located in a former school building on Witte de Withstraat, in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. It was founded in 1990 and originally named after the street it was located on. It presents curated exhibitions, symposiums, live events, educational programs, and has a separate art literature publishing arm.
Ala Younis is a research-based artist and curator, based in Amman. Younis initiates journeys in archives and narratives, and reinterprets collective experiences that have collapsed into personal ones. Through research, she builds collections of objects, images, information, narratives, and notes on why/how people tell their stories. Her practice is based on found material, and on creating materials when they cannot be found or when they do not exist.
Ute Meta Bauer. She is an international curator, professor of contemporary art and the director of the Centre for Contemporary Art (CCA) in Singapore.
Bik van der Pol is the artists duo Liesbeth Bik and Jos van der Pol, who work together since 1994 as conceptual artists and installation artists.
Barbara Vanderlinden is a Belgian art historian, curator, and director.
Emo de Medeiros is a Beninese artist living and working in Paris, France and in Cotonou, Benin.
Spring Workshop was a nonprofit arts organization based in Hong Kong from 2011 to 2018. Founded as a cross-disciplinary residency program and exhibition space, Spring was called "rather enjoyably resistant to categorization" and a “visual arts equivalent to a hackerspace.” In 2016, Spring received the Prudential Eye Award for Best Asian Contemporary Art Organization.
Didem Özbek is a conceptual artist, curator and graphic designer, living and working in Istanbul. She studied at Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University in Istanbul and gained her MA in Communication Design at Central Saint Martins in London.
Fatoş Üstek, born 1980 in Ankara, is a London-based independent Turkish curator and writer, working internationally with large scale organizations, biennials and festivals, as well as commissioning in the public realm. In 2008 she received her MA in Contemporary Art Theory from Goldsmiths College London, after completing her BA in Mathematics at Bogazici University in Istanbul.
Özlem Altin is a German and Turkish visual artist living and working in Berlin, Germany