The critics, the curators, the artists

On three occasions, between the fall of 2008 and the spring of 2009, Witte de With, center for contemporary art, organized three symposia under the title ´Rotterdam Dialogues: The Critics, The Curators, The Artists´. Each three-day event focused on one agent in the art world, looking at their expectations, positions and the contexts in which they operate. If a book cannot capture the atmosphere of lively excitement of 35 international critics, 48 curators and 57 artists, not to mention the 500+ visitors who attended each symposium, it can highlight the individual tone and spirit of many discussions that remain, by necessity, unfinished. This book follows a chronological structure, containing selected transcriptions from each symposium and the outcomes of the associated workshops. After this comes a free-wheeling section titled ´What are you talking about now?´, a question sent to all the guests in the months that followed the symposia. Their diverse reactions give a sense of the range of characters, ideas and practices that the symposia brought together.