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Popular curator Lorenzo Benedetti unexpectedly fired from De Appel

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The Dutch magazine Metropolis M reports that De Appel curator and director Lorenzo Benedetti has been fired by its board. This comes as a surprise to the Dutch art community, who widely recognize him as an exceptionally talented curator. Domeniek Ruyters writes in support of Benedetti for Metropolis M below.

Benedetti is internationally recognised for this talent. Also by the board of De Appel, which reaped him in June 2014 with cheers, precisely because of his record as a curator. Benedetti put De Appel in a few months back to the years on Prinseneiland when Saskia Bos was able to let artist after artist realise stunning installations. These were installations that you simply couldnā€™t miss, that are rooted in memory if you were able to see them. Under Benedetti the so troublesome exhibition building on the Prins Hendrikkade flourished in a short time into something of a genius loci, the building slowly gained an exhibition-soul and an exhibition-history. It became a place where art lovers had to go.

Perhaps the artists were not the most appealing types to a wide audience, perhaps they spoke a language that many people find too formal and contemplative, but here at least art was practiced on the edge of the razor. Art that undid us as viewers from all our tried and tested weapons with which we usually confront art. Visitors donā€™t like this.

Now Benedetti has to leave. For him it feels as if he has barely had a chance to prove himself. Among many direct bystanders in the art world, there is also another disappointment: Benedetti is a white raven in the new breed of contemporary exhibition managers, who, with the textbook ā€˜how you score with a wide audienceā€™ in hand built an exhibition-factory that is able to double, in no time, visitor numbers. Benedettiā€™s appointment at De Appel was a moment of hope for art lovers, hope that the artistsā€™ curator still stood a chance in the marketing addicted exhibition company of the Netherlands.

Not so.

I hear voices from De Appel saying his leadership was lacking, he was abroad too often preparing for new projects, he wasnā€™t able to engage his own staff, the municipality and other institutions in the city in his plans.

I am not so interested in that. There are enough managers in this world. Thereā€™s bound to be someone who can cover local politics for him, and whatever else is necessary in terms of business contacts, just as Paul van Gennip has been doing this at Witte de With for years.

Artistsā€™ curators as Benedetti are rare. You will not easily find another one of them. Therefore, let us cherish them and hold them close.

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Really PATHETIC DECISION.

The DE APPEL BOARD:
Where are the artists? Where are the professionals of contemporary art? The gallerists? The collectors? The critics? The curators? Not at the board of De Appelā€¦

Alexandra Van Hufflen
CEO Amsterdam Public Transport System-GVB.

Wouter Han
Managing Director & Co-head at Lazard Benelux (financial advisory and asset management firm).

Suzanne Oxenaar
Cofounder of restaurant Supperclub and artistic director of The Lloyd Hotel & Cultural Embassy.

Benno Tempel
Director of Gemeentemuseum Den Haag and jury of the reality show The nieuwe Rembrandt, Avro TV.

Hermine Voute
Partner at Loyens & Loeff. Attorney at law, is chairwoman of the Employment Taxes and Employment Law practice group. She specialises in employment law, with the emphasis on collective dismissals, employee representation, and collective bar

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On the 16th of September I was at De Appel. I was invited to be interviewed for the gallerists programme. Although we had been told that Benedetti would be on the board he was not present.
I argued to the board that I wanted to set up a commercial gallery without any of the pretensions and hypocrisy that is plaguing many galleries today. By this I mean: art spaces that operate under the name of a ā€œproject spaceā€ or ā€œartistā€™s run spaceā€ but in reality are commercial galleries. This is a deception of the public. I argued that I wanted to define my gallery without any obfuscations of the reality. At this, I was accused of wanting to start an ā€œextremely commercialā€ gallery which is a comment that comes out of complete misunderstanding of the critique I was making about the current state of the contemporary art world.
And what hypocrisy to find out this news only the day after the interview: that the extremely commercial board had dismissed the curator.

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Update: artists and curators throughout the world are signing a petition in support of Benedetti. Sign it here: deappelsupport.nl

Amsterdam, October 5th, 2015

Both the international and the Dutch art world have responded with shock to the decision of De Appel arts centreā€™s board to fire its director Lorenzo Benedetti after a mere 17 months. Benedettiā€™s outstanding track record as an exhibition maker and his extraordinary qualities as an internationally operating curator stand beyond doubt. The countless expressions of support from The Netherlands and abroad have confirmed this once again. As artists we believe that Benedettiā€™s firing stems from a more fundamental problem and it is through this collective letter of concern that we want to call attention to our view on the matter.

We call for:

A board at De Appel that can count on broad support, in which at least one artist has a seat, and which has sufficient knowledge and experience for its policy related duties.
A De Appel that does not succumb to the political pressures to commercialise and which is able to set its own artistic course.

A reconsideration of the boardā€™s decision to fire Benedetti so that he will be given the time he needs to develop and realise his artistic programme, which we are more than curious about.
Last but not least we call for a fundamental discussion about the influence of Dutch subsidy politics on the centers of contemporary art that we all hold so dear.

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Another update from de Appel: The tutors of the De Appel Curatorial Programme have resigned in support of Lorenzo Benedetti. Their letter below.

Dear Chair and Members of the Board of De Appel Art Centre,

As tutors on the Curatorial Programme, we have followed the course of events around the suspension of director Lorenzo Benedetti with increasing alarm. As individuals who have been engaged with De Appel for up to 20 years, we have great loyalty to the institution and we cannot stand by while its reputation and capacity is brought low in the eyes of the national and international art community. We have written to you privately asking for an explanation of the situation and we had hoped to hear arguments for why we should continue to support the board. Your failure to respond until now, combined with the manner in which you have handled both the process leading to the suspension and the public debate which followed have sadly tested our loyalty to breaking point.

With heavy hearts, we therefore have no alternative but to withdraw our cooperation with De Appel for so long as the current members of the board remain in place. We are convinced that your continuing presence will only make matters worse. You have lost all trust from the art field and can no longer be expected to provide the means necessary to revive the institution, something that is now urgently required. Upon your resignation, we would be happy resume our responsibilities to the students of the Curatorial Programme and to do our collective best to stabilise and rebuild De Appel over the medium term.

Yours faithfully,

Liesbeth Bik, artist, member of collective Bik Van der Pol
Thomas Boutoux, curator and writer
Charles Esche, Director Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven
Annie Fletcher, Chief Curator Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven
Elena Filipovic, Director Kunsthalle Basel
Chus Martinez, Curator en Head of A.I. at FHNW Academy, Basel
Beatrix Ruf, Director Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam
Henk Slager, dean MaHKU Utrecht and curator
Lisette Smits, curator
Barbara Visser, artist and Chair Akademie van Kunsten/KNAW