• Source: Vincent W.J. van Gerven Oei

Vincent W.J. van Gerven Oei (born 1983 in The Hague) is a Dutch publisher, translator, curator, journalist, and philologist. He received an MA in general linguistics from Leiden University, an MMus from the ArtScience department at the Royal Academy of Art, The Hague, a PhD from the division Philosophy, Art & Critical Thought at the European Graduate School, and a PhD from the Centre for Modern Thought at the University of Aberdeen. Van Gerven Oei is currently director/CFO of open access press punctum books and director/CEO of open metadata platform Thoth Open Metadata.




Art and curating


In 2007, Van Gerven Oei started his art career as a part of an artist duo with artist Jonas Staal, exploring the relationship between art, morality and society. They completed art residencies in Chicago, Beijing, Johannesburg, and Tokyo. In his review of their installation “Forty Years of Boredom 1968–2008,” writer Thomas van Aalten referred to Staal and Van Gerven Oei as “new ascetics.” Since 2012 he has been involved in Staal's New World Summit and New World Academy projects as advisor and editor. He also appears in his work 94 Million Years of Collectivism, Video Study as “proletgeologist” and narrator.
In 2011, he established the Department of Eagles foundation in Tirana, as an “independent project bureau for artists and thinkers in and beyond Albania.” With the Department of Eagles, Van Gerven Oei started his curatorial work, including Kukafshehti (2013), developed through his engagement with the LGBT community in Albania, with whom he also organized the first “Gay Ride” in 2012. In 2015, he organized the exhibition Workers Leaving the Studio. Looking Away from Socialist Realism. at the National Museum of Fine Arts in Tirana and raised the alarm about the deplorable state of the museum's holdings. The exhibition Teatri i Gjelbërimit (The Theater of Greenery) (2016), provided an overview of two decades of art in Albanian public space. Other projects included the Albanian Lapidar Survey, the first survey of socialist monumentality in Albania, which Van Gerven Oei conducted with multimedia artist Marco Mazzi in 2014. Their findings were published in the 3-volume publication Lapidari in 2015. From 2021 to 2024 he was editorial board member of Stedelijk Studies, the open access journal of Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam. Since 2022, Van Gerven Oei is a member of the art collective Manifesto.
As an art writer, he has engaged with the work of Armando Lulaj, Bruce Nauman, Edi Rama, Anri Sala, Martin Wong, and the rebranding of Kunstinstituut Melly.




Journalism


After moving to Albania in 2010, Van Gerven Oei started writing regularly about the architecture, culture, and politics of the country, first for the blog of open access scholarly journal continent. and subsequently for literary magazine Berfrois. In 2015, he started the independent online media platform Exit Albania together with Neritan Sejamini and Carloalberto Rossi, for which he continued to write regularly until 2021. A selection from his writings from this period was published in Albanian under the title Rënia e së ardhmes: Arti, korrupsioni dhe fundi i tranzicionit shqiptar (The Collapse of the Future: Art, Corruption and the End of the Albanian Transition) in 2023. His recent writings on Albania have appeared on the blog The Albanian Mechanism.




Open access publishing


In 2011, Van Gerven Oei started publishing house Uitgeverij, focusing on poetry and theory. In 2015, he joined open access publishing house punctum books as director. Van Gerven Oei is a prominent voice for open access in academic publishing. In 2020, he was elected to the board of the Open Access Scholarly Publishing Association, and in 2021 he became the founding chairperson of the ScholarLed foundation. In 2022, he was one of the initiators of the development of FLOSS open metadata platform Thoth.




Philology


As a philologist, Van Gerven Oei is one of the foremost experts of the Old Nubian language. In 2021, he published ‘’A Reference Grammar of Old Nubian,’’ considered a seminal work in the field. He has further published various editiones principes of Old Nubian texts from Old Dongola, Askut, Akasha West, Faras, and Gebel Adda, as well as numerous articles on aspects of Old Nubian grammar. He is co-founder of the Union for Nubian Studies and the open access journal Dotawo: A Journal of Nubian Studies.




Selected publications


Rënia e së ardhmes: Arti, korrupsioni dhe fundi i tranzicionit shqiptar. Translated by Bledar Qalliu. Biblioteka Art & Politikë 2. Tirana: Pika pa sipërfaqe, 2023. ISBN 9789928373120
A Reference Grammar of Old Nubian. Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta 299. Louvain: Peeters, 2021. ISBN 9789042941861
Cross-Examinations. Gent: MER. Paper Kunsthalle, 2015. ISBN 9789492321077




Translations to English


Tagame, Gengoroh. The Passion of Gengoroh Tagame Volume 2, edited by Anne Ishii and Graham Kolbeins. Seattle: Fantagraphics, 2022. ISBN 9781683965282
Wijnberg, Nachoem M. The Jews. Earth: punctum books, 2016. ISBN 9780692620625
Staal, Jonas. Art, Property of Politics III: Fleur Agema. Eindhoven: Onomatopee, 2011. ISBN 9789078454755
Raaijmakers, Dick. The Destructive Character. Eindhoven: Onomatopee, 2011. ISBN 9789078454656
Staal, Jonas. Post-Propaganda. Amsterdam: Fonds BKVB, 2010. ISBN 9789076936215
Staal, Jonas. Power?… To Which People?! Heijningen: Jap Sam Books, 2010. ISBN 9789490322021
De Hoop, Harmen, and Jonas Staal. Activism, Doubt. Eindhoven: Onomatopee, 2009. ISBN 9789078454366
Raaijmakers, Dick. Method. Eindhoven: Onomatopee, 2009. ISBN 9789078454359




References






External links


Official website Vincent W.J. van Gerven Oei
Humanities Commons repository of Vincent W.J. van Gerven Oei

Kata Kunci Pencarian:

• Vincent W.J. van Gerven Oei
• Arena Kombëtare
• Jonas Staal
• List of English words of Etruscan origin
• Dick Raaijmakers
• Punctum Books
• Manifesto (art collective)
• Old Nubian
• Slavery in Merovingian Francia
• Gerald Michael Browne