Art News

Witte de With in Rotterdam announces Istanbul native Defne Ayas as new Director

ROTTERDAM.- The board of Witte de With, Center for Contemporary Art in Rotterdam, announces the appointment of Defne Ayas as its new director, effective from 1st January 2012. Defne Ayas will succeed Nicolaus Schafhausen, who has been director since early 2006. At the end of this year, he will leave his post, having led the institute very successfully for six years, the maximum number of years a director can stay at Witte de With according to the institution’s policy. Istanbul native Defne Ayas heads to Rotterdam from New York, where she has served as a curator of Performa – the visual art performance biennial of New York City – since 2004, and from Shanghai, where she has acted as a co-founding director of Arthub Asia – a contemporary art initiative devoted to art creation and exchange across Asia– since 2007. Ayas was also a faculty member of contemporary art and new media at the New York University in S