Keith Whittle

Forthcoming Publication:Whose Place is it Anyway?

During the past decade, there has been a boom in contemporary art projects in various areas of Japan, often as a tool of town or city regeneration. What may be unique about these projects is that many are happening outside the situ of the museum and are being led by the communities where the projects take place. This new phenomenon has increasingly come to occupy an important position in Japan’s contemporary art scene and has created an opportunity to review the relationship between art and those who are involved in it.

With the environments in which people live undergoing rapid and dramatic change, shifts in economic prospects, ecological imperatives, and with the need for new systems and new ways of forming societies and communities the publication asks if such projects offer sound models for future approaches to urban and rural regeneration, and if they could play a leading role in reconfiguring cultural landscapes and in developing truly participatory arts practice in the 21st century context, as well as defining it?

Advisers:
Takashi Serisawa, P3 art and environment, Japan
Lewis Biggs, Artistic Director, Liverpool Biennial, UK
Mami Kataoka, Chief Curator, Mori Art Museum, Japan
Akiko Miki, Artistic Director, Yokohama Triennale 2011, Japan
Jonathan Watkins, Director, Ikon Gallery, UK
Fram Kitagawa, Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennial, Japan

Research generously supported through a Japan Foundation Fellowship.

Top Image: Yayoi Kusama, Benesse Art Site Naoshima, Seto Islands, Japan. Photography and copyright Keith Whittle

Keith Whittle is a curator and producer of international art projects with a successful track record of developing sustainable partnerships with stakeholders in the education, public and voluntary sectors. He has been fortunate enough to have collaborated with many of the key figures on the contemporary art and design scene, whilst continuing to showcase emerging talents within the field. He has worked with numerous organisations at the forefront of vibrant and expanding areas of practice, promoting innovation through devising and producing high quality commissions and exhibitions.

Formally of the Institute of Contemporary Arts, London, as well as the leading national agency for commissioning and touring artists moving image work Film and Video Umbrella, he has been closely involved in the commissioning, curation and production of over 200 different artists’ projects ranging from ambitious gallery and public-realm installations to national and international touring exhibitions, festivals, international artist residences, artist talks, symposia and accompanying publications.

Individual artist collaborations have included national touring exhibitions by Isaac Julien, Jane & Louise Wilson, Michael Landy, Mark Leckey and Johan Grimonprez, with more recent international collaborations focusing on commissioning new work for the public-realm and international touring gallery exhibitions, working with artists such as Adel Abdessemed, Sarkis, Michael Lin, Erika Tan and Lu Chunsheng, and exhibited in partnership and collaboration with leading galleries and art venues such as Tate Britain, Camden Arts Centre, South London Gallery, Iniva, BankART 1929/NYK, ShanghART Gallery, China and Serpentine Gallery, London.

On leaving the ICA and Film and Video Umbrella, he spearheaded and delivered an ambitious internationally focused curatorial programme in the North East of England including international exchange residencies, exhibitions, site-specific and newly commissioned work with a focus on Contemporary Asian Art. Projects were developed in collaboration and partnership with cultural agencies such as Culture 10, major cultural festivals such as CHINA NOW, EAST’08 & UK-Japan 2008, working with galleries and venues such as Cornerhouse, Manchester, BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art and V&A South Kensington, London.

Recipient of a Visiting Arts International Exchange Placement in Japan (2009), part of the UK Government funded Cultural Leadership Programme, he has recently been awarded a Japan Foundation Fellowship, and will also take up the post of Guest Professor at Tokyo University of the Arts (東京芸術大学, Tōkyō Geijutsu Daigaku), in 2012.

He is also International Projects Associate at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design.

If you would like to contact Keith Whittle please email him here: mail@keithwhittle.org

Recent projects include gallery exhibitions by Chinese artist Lu Chunsheng at Iniva, London, working with Hans Ulrich Obrist, Co-Director, Exhibitions and Programmes and Director of International Projects, Serpentine Gallery, curator David Thorp and ShanghART Gallery, China. The recently launched Atelier Nomad residency programme and a series of international projects exploring common contexts and differing approaches to arts activity working with likes of The Japan Foundation, London and Andrea Schlieker, Curator, Folkestone Triennial and Juror 2009 Turner Prize.

More recently as Assistant Director, P3 art and environment, Tokyo, he helped spearhead and deliver a major contemporary art festival and programme of site-specific public-realm installations by internationally acclaimed contemporary artists.

In 2010 he founded Fountain. Working across Britain and beyond, Fountain commissions, curates, produces and presents contemporary art projects with a focus on international collaboration and exchange. Exploring contemporary themes and emerging aesthetic trends, projects are produced in partnership and collaboration with major galleries, cultural organisations and institutions, festivals, corporate sponsors and academic partners nationally and internationally.

Other individual artist and collaborations have included projects with Adam Chodzko, Vito Acconci, Bill Viola, Boyd Webb, Carey Young, Cornford & Cross, Dryden Goodwin, Erika Tan, Lothar Götz, Gary Hill, Graham Gussin, Isaac Julien, Jake Tilson, Jananne Al-Ani, Jane & Louise Wilson, Janice Kerbel, Johan Grimonprez, Marina Abramović, Michael Lin, John Maeda MIT, Mark Lewis, Lani Maestro, Nick Crowe, Roderick Buchanan, Sarkis, Simon Faithfull, Smith/Stewart, Susan Collins, Sutupa Biswas, Young-Hae Chang Heavy Industries and Jiang Zhi.