Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art is an international public institution with Rotterdam as its home base. Established in 1990, Witte de With explores developments in contemporary art worldwide and presents this through exhibitions, theoretical and educational programs, public events and publications. Witte de With is an alternative to the more traditional museums of modern and contemporary art, to artists’ initiatives and to commercial galleries.

Over the years, Witte de With has evolved, growing to also commission and produce new works of art. The institution puts great emphasis on creating meaningful partnerships in Rotterdam and on national and international levels. This is because collaboration enhances knowledge, resources, strength and distribution capabilities and stimulates inspiration and innovation.

Witte de With has been led from the outset by directors who have played a leading role in shaping the contemporary art world: Chris Dercon (1990 – 1995, now director of Tate Modern, London), Bartomeu Marí (1996 – 2001, now director at Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona), Catherine David (2002 – 2005, now independent curator of the long-term project Contemporary Arab Representations, Hans Maarten van den Brink (interim director, May 2004 – April 2006), Nicolaus Schafhausen (2006 – 2011, now a strategic advisor for the Shorefast Foundation), were all given the opportunity to make their personal mark on the program. As of 2012, Defne Ayas is the appointed Director of Witte de With. Remaining true to Witte de With’s mission, Ayas begins to formulate a new vision for the institution—one that includes more collaborative partnerships across the globe, continuing a focus on pioneering solo exhibitions and performances, and a dynamic exploration of contemporary material culture via a think tank model.

Witte de With continues to see its task as presenting the latest developments in contemporary art, without making concessions concerning content, while simultaneously seeking to reach as broad a public as possible. The institutions’ website supports these efforts by providing a comprehensive archive of all of Witte de With’s projects and events.

Since 1990, Witte de With has presented exhibitions by more than 300 artists -both established and emerging-, and numerous platforms with international and nation-wide partners to critical acclaim, reaching over 20,000 visitors annually. The exhibitions of artists such as Daniel Buren, Tacita Dean, Isa Genzken, David Goldblatt, Dan Graham, Atelier van Lieshout, Aernout Mik, Haim Steinbach, Luc Tuymans, Jesper Just, Geoffrey Farmer and Ian Wallace reflect the huge diversity of ideas and forms in contemporary art. The focus is on unconventional, critical artistic practices such as recently those of Angela Bulloch, Billy Apple®, Liam Gillick as well as those of Ulrike Ottinger, John Baldessari, Antoní Muntadas, Rita McBride, Brian Jungen, Annette Kelm, Margaret Salmon, Tris Vonna-Michell, Sarah Lucas, Douglas Gordon and Yto Barrada.

Witte de With organizes thematic group exhibitions to address urgent topics. Former director Catherine David initiated the long-term project Contemporary Arab Representations, which yielded new insights into a field of continuing social and cultural relevance. Witte de With is not afraid of controversy: In 2007, BODYPOLITICX explored relations between art, cultural production and the sexualization of society. The year-long Morality project at Witte de With was structured as a series of interrelated acts to reflect and debate situations in contemporary life that refuse clear distinctions between right and wrong, what is and what ought to be. Melanchotopia, 2011 invited more than forty international artists to work with different venues in the city-center of Rotterdam and to activate their potential as spaces for ideas, discourse and invention.

Witte de With presents approximately 14 – 18 projects each year.

Most outstanding projects in recent years include:

“Melanchotopia,” 3 September 2011 – 31 December 2011, a city-wide exhibition in Rotterdam with 34 artists.

“MORALITY,” 10 October 2009 – 26 September 2010, a cycle of 7 exhibitions, a performance program, a film program, a website, a symposium, 19-20 November 2010, and a book (forthcoming Spring 2011).

“Rotterdam Dialogues: The Critics, The Curators, The Artists,” 9 – 11 Oct 2008/ 57 March 2009/16–19 April 2009, a series of symposia.

Liam Gillick, “Three Perspectives and a Short Scenario,” 19 January – 24 March 2009, with solo exhibitions inside structure lasting until 24 August 2009.

Witte de With’s mission is to join rigor and imagination to open up spaces of possibility and develop fruitful avenues of encounters, collaboration, inspiration, knowledge production and transfer. The purpose is to challenge assumptions and to encourage new interpretations of artistic questions and their social context. In the past, we were fortunate to host thinkers such as Brian Holmes, Adam Budak, Tim Griffin, Rem Koolhaas, Maria Lind, Suhail Malik, Martha Rosler, Hans Ulrich Obrist, Tariq Ramadan and Willem Schinkel.

Witte de With’s public programs take place in the form of lecture-series and symposia, or online streams and have been organized in conjunction with or independently to the exhibition program. These events provide a platform to engage with artists, curators, scholars and intellectuals from different disciplines. Our signature Rotterdam Dialogues summits are an evidence of this.

Visitors can also join daily informal guided tours in which various members of staff speak about the current exhibitions or the institution; as well as artists’ talks, in which individual artists speak about their work and their sources of inspiration. Performances and film screenings reveal some surprising approaches in contemporary art. For example, a series of TV dinners, short talk shows with celebrity guests such as the trendsetting lingerie designer Marlies Dekkers, the artists Erik van Lieshout and Phil Collins, and the film maker Sophie Fiennes.

A variety of innovative programs and projects are offered to a wide audience, though Witte de With is recognized for excelling at projects with youth or young adults. The aim is to foster diversities in knowledge, cultural background and age. Witte de With’s educational activities are often integrated into existing education programs, via collaborations with schools of different levels; as well as into spare time activities.

The emphasis remains on participatory, collaborative activities with producers of contemporary culture; thus artists, curators and critics are engaged in helping to structure the programs. Numerous collaborations with Universities and Art Academies have been forged. Notably, master classes act to enhance the curriculum of Masters of Fine Arts courses in The Netherlands, by offering young artists a chance to interact with the leading figures in art, criticism and curating. Witte de With’s educational activities have been inspirational to many other art institutions around the world.

Recent example includes:

“JET: It’s not a plane, it’s not a girl’s name, it’s a book about art,” a multi-month venture into all aspects of art publishing put together by the Junior Editorial Team (JET) and Belinda Hak (then Head of Education).

Publications are an integral part of the artistic activity at Witte de With. Since its inception, the center has developed a curatorial position devoted to the production of publications. Our attitude is that books constitute a unique medium: distinct from exhibitions and events, they travel easily and have a lasting quality, becoming archives of the activity of writers, artists, curators, designers, editors, and readers alike.

Witte de With’s publications range from exhibition catalogues to artists’ books and editions to readers, symposia proceedings, and single essays in translation. The center’s directors have tended to make their mark on the program by each introducing new publication series. To date, these include Cahiers, The Lectures, FROM, Forming Theory, Tamáss, Source Books, Reflections, and a loose series of artist’s books devoted to portraying the city of Rotterdam.

A catalogue of all of Witte de With’s publications to date is available on the institution’s website and they are available for ordering online via the online shop: www.wdw.nl/shop.

Most recent publications include:

20 + Years Witte de With (2012), a comprehensive survey of Witte de With’s projects, events and publications since its inception in 1990.

On Super-diversity, Tariq Ramadan (2011), the second in Witte de With’s Reflections series.

Cornerstones (2011), a reader with 14 essays selected and compiled from the monthly lectures held at Witte de With between 2008 and 2009.

Ca. 1200 m² of exhibition space (600 m² per floor). Galleries, auditorium, shared space (with TENT) and offices.