KAREN SMITH writer and curator based in China, and co-curator of 'The Real Thing: Contemporary Chinese Art' at Tate Liverpool in 2007.
On a personal level, it would have to be seeing Ai Weiwei's "Working Progress" float on the dock at Tate Liverpool in March (the work had been commissioned for 'The Real Thing: Contemporary Chinese Art').
Then there was the recent news that the catalogue for 'The Real Thing' came second in the The Art Newspaper & AXA Art Exhibition Catalogue Award 2007. From the China perspective, the highlight of 2007 was the opening of the Ullens Center for Contemporary Art. It brought a huge number of art journalists to Beijing, many for the first time, and set in motion a lively debate about what constitutes art in China and its future. This first round will prove to be of great significance in time.
MARK HAWORTH-BOOTH formerly Senior Curator of Photographs at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, now a Visiting Professor of Photography, University of the Arts London.
The deepest low of the year was the death of John Szarkowski, the most brilliant talent in the field of photography. One of the great highs was the opening of the CORE building at the Eden Project, designed by Grimshaw Partners, with the superb photographic windows by Susan Derges and the spectacular Seed sculpture by Peter Randall Page.
KENNY SCHACHTER an American, London-based dealer, critic and curator whose gallery Rove is based in Hoxton Square in London.
Zaha Hadid at the Design Museum in London: Zaha continues to floor me with her abundant wealth of creativity and the breadth of her output, not to mention we are working together on a building and a multitude of projects. And, on a more objective note, Ralph Rugoff's painting show at the Hayward, "The Painting of Modern Life", was the most cohesive, awe-inspiring curatorial effort I have seen in 20 years. Breathtaking.
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