Amsterdam Art: Locality and the International Status Quo

Stedelijk Curator-at-Large Adam Szymczyk and Amsterdam Art director Nina Folkersma both completed the Appel Curatorial Program in Amsterdam in 1996. They are the first speakers to join our conversation table in order to discuss precarious issues affecting the Amsterdam art world and the international field since the 1990s, and to evaluate where change has taken place and where the status quo remains largely unchanged.

The presence of artists Otobong Nkanga and Charl Landvreugd, alumna of the Rijksakademie in Amsterdam and Head of Research at the Stedelijk Museum, steers the conversation on topicalities in local and international contexts towards key notions within their work. Even though their practices are fundamentally different, they share similar interests in the social and topographical relationships within our everyday environment and notions of land, belonging and non-belonging.

Stevenson Gallery director Joost Bosland will share his experiences of working in Amsterdam, Johannesburg and Cape Town. How do the Amsterdam market, the Dutch market and the global market differ? And is there space for curatorial and artistic topics such as those addressed by our guest speakers?

Poet, writer and spoken word artist Gershwin Bonevacia will interpunctuate the short, focused conversations with a commissioned spoken word performance. As the assigned city poet of Amsterdam he addresses topics such as the city, education and the past with a playful and philosophical approach.