Talk with Ou Ning, Witte de With, Rotterdam
Thursday 12 April 2012 (7 – 9 pm) at Witte de With, Rotterdam
Talk by Ou Ning, one of China’s leading independent thinkers, as he expands on the mercurial possibilities in the art world, cross-disciplinary explorations between art, architecture, and literature, and having multiple hats as artist, editor, writer, activist, and curator.
Respondent: Delphine Bedel
This evening is organized by Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art, and presented in collaboration with PrintRoom.
Ou Ning (simplified Chinese: 欧宁; traditional Chinese: 歐寧; pinyin: ōu níng)’s cultural practices encompass multiple disciplines. As an activist, he founded U-thèque, an independent film and video organization and Bishan Commune, an intellectual group who devote themselves to rural reconstruction movement in China; As an editor and graphic designer, he is known for his seminal book New Sound of Beijing; As a curator, he initiated the biennale exhibition Get It Louder (2005, 2007, 2010) and launched the sound project in China Power Station, co-organized by Serpentine Gallery and Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art; As an artist, he is known for the urban research projects such as San Yuan Li, commissioned by 50th Venice Biennale (2003), and Da Zha Lan, commissioned by the Kulturstiftung des Bundes.
He is a frequent contributor of various magazines, books and exhibition catalogues and has lectured around the world. In 2009, he was appointed the chief curator of 2009 Shenzhen & Hong Kong Bi-city Biennale of Urbanism and Architecture(09SZHKB), and was chosen to be the jury member of the 8th Benesse Prize at the 53rd Venice Biennale.
He was the curator of The Solutions: Design and Social Engineering for the 2011 Chengdu Biennale and the founder of a new literary bi-monthly magazine Chutzpah (Tian Nan in Chinese) which launched its first issue on April 2011. He’s based in Beijing, and is the director of Shao Foundation and member of Asian Art Council 2011 at Guggenheim Museum.
About Delphine Bedel
Delphine Bedel is a photographer, curator and publisher. She is founding director of the Amsterdam Art/Book Fair. Visiting Professor at the M.F.A. HEAD – Geneva University of Art and Design, and publisher of Hard Copy editions. Director of Monospace Press, a publishing house and international platform for contemporary art, photography and graphic design.