Adjunct Professor Ydessa Hendeles has been granted her PhD, Cum Laude, at the University of Amsterdam
Ydessa Hendeles has been granted her PhD, Cum Laude, from the Amsterdam School for Cultural Analysis, at the University of Amsterdam, for her thesis on “Curatorial Compositions”. The “Cum Laude” designation is an honour, recognizing the excellence of her doctoral thesis. Ydessa has worked out a unique intellectual project through the remarkable curatorial innovations that put her at the forefront of curating internationally.
Jennifer Allen recently wrote in Frieze that Ydessa’s shows “are so good that others pale in comparison,” and she isolated one of the defining features of Ydessa’s work:
Instead of being subjected to – or branded by – an abstract curatorial concept, every art work becomes an emphatic witness: maintaining its autonomy while becoming part of an exceptional event that warrants testimony.
While the effects of Ydessa’s work cannot be duplicated, they have transformed international exhibition practice.
Here is the text of Ydessa Hendeles’ “lay speech,” given for the formal doctoral examination: