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Conferences of this kind are always relevant, because they help professionals and audiences to look behind the scenes and to experience the kinds of thought and debate that go around in the produciton of art, writing, and exhibitions. They are also important for the institution itself with respect to the flow of people and ideas. It is critical for everyone, audience, curators, artists and writers to engage in an environment where we can receive and offer each other meaningful feedback.

This question is far to programatic! We can only say that it is extremely important for us that people meet, talk, discuss, and party together. That this includes different generations, who seldom have the opportunity to exchange ideas in a concentrated way.

This format is the opposite of a talk show. We are not interested in a passive audience. We actually want to see a local audience that is increasingly engaged and also included. We are speaking of national audience, as Witte de With has over the years established itself as a very important international institution. This is evident in the list of people who have crossed paths with it during the two decades of its existence. As for the volume, most of these events tend to be closed to a limited audience and are very expensive. There are reasons for this but we are glad to have the opportunity to offer such volume to larger audiences and for lesser cost. We must be sensitive to the fact that people travel to Rotterdam, and to The Netherlands, exclusively for these events, and we consider this to be enough reason for us to open it up, in spite of certain limitations of space.

We don’t think that we set up to many panels or invited to many guest-speakers. Our intention is to give as broad an overview as broad and depthful as possible, and give audiences the chance to attend the panels which are most relevant to each individual. It is impossible to expect that the artworld is interesting in all its details to every single person.

Of course, in so far as people who are invited and most of the audience gave us very positive feedback on their experience and contexts from which they come from.

We found out, that the interest in our programing goes beyond the confines of Western Europe and North America, and increasingly includes younger generations as well as older ones whom were before interested in more conventional formats. The combined attendance of both conferences of more than 1000 individuals is remarkable. This we see also as a definitive proof that these events are considered as extremely contemporary, relevant, and as we see, are also successful. It also shows that this format, different from lectures, creates a critical mass and a discourse in itself.

Like the other conferences we don’t give predetermined expectations. Rather, we provide frames and give the speakers as much freedom as possible in developing their own answers and questions.

http://www.wdw.nl/project.php?id=194

Guillaume Bijl, Ulrike Oettinger, Martha Rosler.

It’s not about who is “in” or who is “out”. Artists are extremely busy and it is often impossible to make everyones schedule coincide. This being said, we have been constantly surprised that so many extremely successful artists have been able to make room in their schedules in order to attend this conference. This, we think, speaks volumes about how we are perceived in the present as a careful and hospitable institution committed to contemporary art.

The Institutions will be next, probably The Collectors and The Market, why not? But we will also be organizing other kinds of conferences around different themes, as we’ve done before, and these we consider not only extremely relevant too, but also complementary to these three.