Laurens Otto
curator, writer, editor
laurens.pc.otto[at]gmail[dot]com

curator, Vleeshal, Middelburg, Netherlands, 2026-present


board member, AICA, Netherlands, 2026-present

AICA Salon - Drowning in a Sea of Blurb: The Value of Writing in the age of Content, Perdu, Amsterdam. With: Timo Demollin, Nicoline van Harskamp, Tangents (Beckett Flanery, Annie Goodner, Isabelle Sully).


co-founder, celador, Brussels, Belgium, 2023-present

co-curator Charlotte Posenenske: Monotonie ist schön, 2023, 24-hour film program, exhibition, and reading-group co-curated with Brenda Guesnet, in collaboration with Timo Demollin, Ian Wallace


curator, Museum Dhondt-Dhaenens, Deurle, Belgium, 2020-2023

curator Mark Manders - The Absence of Mark Manders (in Woning Van Wassenhove), 2023

House with All Existing Words (Roma Publications, 2023)

e-flux,

designboom,

Stir World

curator Fruits of Labour (group exhibition), 2023

Artists: Simon Boudvin, Andrea Büttner, Cercle d'Art des Travailleurs de Plantation Congolaise, Timo Demollin, Jean-Luc Godard, Dionisis Kavallieratos, Ives Maes, Lala Meredith-Vula, Jamilah Sabur, Allan Sekula, Marie Voignier

Brochure (PDF)

Contemporary Art Library

De Witte Raaf

curator Magali Reus - On Like Scenery, 2022

Brochure (PDF)

Interview

Contemporary Art Writing Daily

Cultured Mag

De Witte Raaf

curator Blindsight - Manon de Boer in dialogue with Latifa Laâbissi and Laszlo Umbreit, 2022

Another Ghost Party (Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther und Franz König, 2023)

Brochure (PDF)

L'Art Même

curator Terre Thaemlitz - Interstices (in Woning van Wassenhove), 2021

Brochure (PDF)

curator Cally Spooner - Dead Time (in Woning van Wassenhove), 2021

A Lecture on Stagnation (Please do not Bend, 2021)


Recent books and magazines as editor-in-chief (selection):

Mark Manders - House with All Existing Words (Roma Publications, 2023)

Manon de Boer & Latifa Laâbissi - Another Ghost Party (Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther und Franz König, 2023)

Contributors: Manon de Boer, Fabian Flückiger, Ailton Krenak, Latifa Laâbissi, Olivier Marboeuf, Laila Melchior, Laurens Otto, Suely Rolnik

Presented at: WIELS, Brussels; Jeu de Paume, Paris

RESOLUTION Magazine #1 Hot Pictures (Antenna Books, 2021)

Contributors: Caszimir Cleutjens, Femke Herregraven, Rick Goss, Christopher C. Heuer, Caroline A. Jones, Alexander Klose, Giacomo Mercuriali, Kyveli Mavrokordopoulou, Clara Thomine, Wan-Yin Chen, Matthew C. Wilson

Presented at: San Seriffe, Amsterdam; The Photographers' Gallery, London; SPRINT, Milan; Yale School of Art, New Haven; Belgian Institute of Graphic Design, Ostend

RESOLUTION Magazine #0 The Pixel (Onomatopee, 2019)

Contributors a.o.: Doris Boerman, Lev Manovich, William J. Mitchell, belit sağ, Alvy Ray Smith

Presented at: WIELS, Brussels; Onomatopee, Eindhoven

Critique in Practice. Renzo Martens' Episode III: Enjoy Poverty (Sternberg Press, 2020 - managing editor)

Contributors a.o.: Ariella Azoulay, Eva Barois De Caevel, Angela Dimitrakaki, Charles Esche, Suhail Malik, Laurens Otto, Kolja Reichert, kąrî’kạchä seid’ou , Eyal Weizman


Recent publications (selection):

'What Was Woke? Review of Musa al-Gharbi: We Have Never Been Woke: The Cultural Contradictions of a New Elite,' Krisis | Journal for Contemporary Philosophy, 2026 (forthcoming)

'Notes on a Studio Visit with Yorgos Prinos,' émergent Magazine 13, 2025

'Wolfgang Tillmans: Nothing could have prepared us - Everything could have prepared us,' émergent Magazine, 2025

Criticism in Crisis: How a Democratic Foundation is Crumbling / Kritiek in crisis: Hoe een democratisch fundament afbrokkelt (policy document on the state of art criticism in the Netherlands in a survey of ten magazines: De Witte Raaf, Glean, Hard//Hoofd, kunstlicht, Metropolis M, Mister Motley, Museumtijdschrift, Simulacrum, Tangents, Tubelights), Platform BK, 2025.

Corne de brume, misthoorn, Nebelhorn - A Poem for Arian de Vette, Jan Hüskes, and Varda Caivano, FLATS, Brussels, 2024.

'In and Out of Focus: Reading the Cosmos through the Elements / Scharf und unscharf: Den Kosmos durch die Elemente deuten.' In: Lennart Lahuis: Earth Fire Water Air, Museum Schloss Moyland, 2024.

'The Exhibition Format as a Vector for Institutional Change.' In: Everything is New, ed. Nikolay Alutin, De Appel, 2020.

Industry as Culture as Industry, ed. Timo Demollin, 2020.

'This Time It's Personal: Politics as an Expansion of the Self,' The Name of the Author, Sandberg Instituut, 2018.

'De Terugkeer van het Portret. Being: New Photography in het MoMA,' De Witte Raaf 195, 2018.

'Rana Hamadeh: On the Threshold of the Law' & 'Saskia Noor van Imhoff: Disorganising Order,' Prix de Rome 2017, NAI Publishers, 2017.


Co-organized conferences:

Un art documentaire. Enjeux esthétiques, politiques et éthiques, Sorbonne-Paris I and Sorbonne-Paris IV, Paris, 2015. In collaboration with: Aline Caillet, Frédéric Pouillaude.

Blackmarket for Knowledge and Non-Knowledge, Musée de l'Homme, Paris, 2015. In collaboration with: Grégory Castéra, Hannah Hurtzig, Alexander Klose, Nataša Petrešin-Bachelez, Sandra Terdjman


Recent lectures and panel discussions:

Gerrit Rietveld Academie, Amsterdam; Perdu, Amsterdam; erg, Brussels; WIELS, Brussels; Rijksuniversiteit Groningen; KU Leuven; Yale School of Art, New Haven; ISCP, New York City; Institut national d'histoire de l'art (INHA), Paris; Nieuwe Instituut, Rotterdam; Museum De Pont, Tilburg


Recent mixtapes:

KIOSK, Brussels; Mutant Radio, Tbilisi; NTS, London


Previously:

What Stories Want, MORPHO & Kunsthal Extra City, Antwerp, 2021.

curator, Het HEM, Zaandam, Netherlands, 2019 - 2020.

associate curator, Institute for Human Activities, Lusanga, DR Congo, 2016 - 2019.

assistant curator, Council, Paris, France, 2015 - 2016.