Rotterdam Dialogues The Critics I'd like to respond to Thomas Berghuis' latest entry 'Time will Tell', in which he asks 'Do we need art critics to establish a dialogue about contemporary art? -- The recent forum at de Witte de With in Rotterdam may provide some answers (see: http://www.wdw.nl/project.php?id=183). I am hoping to hear/read more.'

Rich Streitmatter-Tran and I both took part at this symposium. Rich took part at discussionpanel in day 3: 'What can D-I-Y Criticism offer?' I was the host for the day 2: Positions, outlining the theme of the programm and responding to the various contributions during the day. As a first response to Berghuis' request, I'd like to post my introduction talk which relates a lot to some questions Thomas Berghuis posed, hoping it will provoke others to join in!

I'd like to respond to Mustafa Maluka's last blog about the South African photographer, by showing two photo's that I recently saw at the exhibition 'Snap Judgments - New positions in Contemporary African Photography', made by Okwui Enwezor, made by the photographer Nontsikelelo "Lolo" Veleko. Her photo's remind me of the ever more famous so-called Streetstyle blogs. (Blogs with photo's about normal people dressed hip, who are increasingly influencing the fashion industry. For instance www.facehunter.blogspot.com and www.playlust.net.

On the request of Lee Weng Choy to all of us to have shorter blog entries, I've cut an earlier entry in two.

My first intuitive response to the discussion about artistic positions in a global art world, issues like geography, territory and mobility, (i.e. the definition of 'territorial, extra-territorial and world artists') is to throw in some practice and maybe discuss some recent exhibition models (7th Gwangju Biennial by Okwui Enwezor, Shanghai Biennial 2008 by Zhang Qing, Julian Heyn and Henk Slager), that respond to this issues.

Talking about overcoming geographical boundaries. In the Chinese pavilion at the 52nd Venice Biennale Cao Fei introduced her documentary iMirror, “filmed” entirely in Second Life and directed by her SL avatar China Tracy.

see YouTube: http://blogs.walkerart.org/offcenter/2007/07/16/cao-feis-imirror/
See the blog of her avatar China Tracy: http://www.alternativearchive.com/chinatracy/

I got a message in my mail today that the Serpentine Gallery is going to launch the project RMB City by Cao Fei.

See a short description of the project below and and interview i held with Cao Fei in 2005.

Beijing-based artist Cao Fei (born 1978) is fusing fantasy with the contemporary Chinese city in her construction of RMB City, an experimental art community in the internet-based virtual world of Second Life.

world art studies

One of the latest books that i bought was 'World Art Studies: Exploring Concepts and Approaches'.