Visiting Curators

Information on the Guest Curators 2023

Jes Fernie is an independent curator, writer and lecturer based in Essex, UK. She is interested in the social, political and environmental context in which art is made, situated, and viewed. In 2021 she launched the Archive of Destruction, a long-term, international research project that brings together narratives around public sculpture that has been destroyed by rage, boredom, fear, greed and love. In 2023 she curated a contemporary sculpture exhibition at MK Gallery (Milton Keynes, UK) that explored the body’s newly configured relation to the world which involves increasingly fluid movement between binary systems, technology, human forms, animals, identities, and the environment. She often works with artists to develop texts, ideas and conversations.
(Proposed by Ele Hermel, Artistic Director, Galerie Mitte im KUBO)

Adeline Lépine is the director of the regional center for contemporary art in Montbéliard Le 19, Crac – Centre régional d'art contemporain since October 2022. Previously, between 2016 and 2022, she curated the Veduta programme, the experimental laboratory combining art, territories and their users, of the Biennale de Lyon. Following studies in art history and a number of experiences in the social field, Lépine had been working for various museums and art centres in France as a mediator, programmer and cultural engineer. In 2015 she had been one of the residents of the Capacete Residency in Rio de Janeiro (Brazil). Also involved as an artist or curator in various collective artistic projects (La Machine à Performer, Feminismo e Feijoada, etc.), Adeline Lépine aims for creating situations that encourage encounters between «alterities» (a work of art, an institution, an artist, people, different forms of life, etc.). Each project generates new experiences of dialogue, conviviality, reflection and (political, social and esthetical) actions based on the creative processes of the artists invited and the involvement of the place users to appropriate them.
(Proposed by Annette Hans, Artistic and Managing Director, GAK Gesellschaft für Aktuelle Kunst)

Dr. Lena Nievers is curator and collection manager at the Museum der Moderne Salzburg since 2018, where she curates exhibitions and publications on 20th and 21st century art. She studied Art History and English at the University of Aberdeen and PhD in Art History with a dissertation on the work of Juan Muñoz at the University of Cologne. From 2008 to 2010 Nievers completed a Scientific traineeship, and worked as a scientific assistant at Kunsthalle Emden until 2012. From 2014 to 2018 she was Curator and worked in press and public relations at Galerie im Taxispalais (since 2017 TAXISPALAIS Kunsthalle Tirol) in Innsbruck.
(Proposed by Dr. Frank Schmidt, Director, Museen Böttcherstrasse)

Agnieszka Roguski is the Artistic Director of M.1 Arthur Boskamp Stiftung and co-founded the transcuratorial collective A.R. practice. Roguski is a researcher, curator, and writer living in Berlin. Based on transdisciplinary methodologies, she focuses on performance and performativity, visual and (post-)digital cultures and ways to formulate transient, critical publics. In her PhD thesis “The Self on Display” (to be published soon), she investigated web-based practices of identification and disidentification in relation to the curatorial. In 2022, she was awarded the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art international research residency in Seoul.
(Proposed by Nadja Quante Artistic Director, Künstlerhaus Bremen)

Eric Golo Stone is currently artistic director at the Künstlerhaus Stuttgart where he has organized exhibitions by Eva Barto, Niloufar Emamifar, Andrea Fraser, Flint Jamison, Anike Joyce Sadiq, Bea Schlingelhoff, and Ramaya Tegegne. His research, writing, curating, and lecturing consistently examines the political economy of art. His writing has been published in Afterall, FlashArt, October, and Texte zur Kunst, among other publications. He is editor of the newly released book, Services Working Group, published by Fillip, and with Rhea Anastas, Charles Gaines, and Jamillah James he is co-editor of the book The Theater of Refusal: Black Art and Mainstream Criticism (1993–2023), to be released 2023 from Dancing Foxes Press.
(Proposed by Nadja Quante Artistic Director, Künstlerhaus Bremen)

Review Visiting Curators 2022

Valuable tips, criticism and exchange: four curators from four different art and cultural institutions in Germany, Belgium and Denmark visited a total of 27 artists from Bremen in November and December 2022 in their studios as part of the Visiting Curators program. The curators and artists exchanged views on their respective artistic or curatorial positions, programs and projects. But current circumstances, obstacles and challenges, such as the after-effects of the pandemic on their work and points of view, were also topics. The informal studio discussions gave the artists new impulses, valuable tips and the opportunity to take a fresh look at their own work: "The view from outside is enriching. Being able to assume mutual interest without persuasion, offers the chance to enter quickly into an intensive exchange," says participating artist Gertrud Schleising.
The guest curators in 2022: Stef Van Bellingen (curator at WARP, platform for contemporary art in Sint-Niklaas, Belgium), Lisa Britzger (curator at the municipal art space Lothringer 13 Halle in Munich), Anne Hagen Kielgast (curator at Kunstforeningen GL STRAND in Copenhagen, Denmark) and Susanne Weiß (freelance curator, most recently interim director of ifa-Galerie Berlin in 2021/2022 together with Inka Gressel, Berlin).

The Visiting Curators program organized by the Künstlerhaus Bremen enabled artists from Bremen to meet and exchange with foreign curators for the fifth time in 2022. The program aims to connect Bremen artists with curators and provide them with professional feedback on their artistic work through one-on-one meetings in their studios. The aim is to introduce artists to established curators outside the Bremen art scene and to gain new perspectives on their own work. For this purpose, the artists showed their original works or sketches during the visits, discussed ideas or looked at their portfolios together with the curators and considered how their visibility could be improved: "I think the Visiting Curators program is a great way to introduce artists to curators and their thinking. The assessments, tips, comments and criticism from these extremely respectable people are invaluable," says the artist Klaas Wurtmann after his visit by Anne Hagen Kielgast.

The curators - some of whom are internationally active - were invited by their respective colleagues from the Gerhard-Marcks-Haus, the GAK Gesellschaft für aktuelle Kunst, the Städtische Galerie Bremen and the Künstlerhaus Bremen. At a get-together in the Weserburg library with curators and directors of Bremen art institutions, the guests gained additional insight into the local art scene and could network with their colleagues. Their visits to artists in Bremen gave them a glimpse behind studio doors that were previously unknown to them, confronted them with artistic positions that provoked new ideas, and in some cases led to concrete invitations. For example, the Bremen-based artist Paula Hurtado Otero will be shown in Lisa Britzger's group exhibition PART TIME COMMITMENT SERIES - Prologue: What does work mean at the end of the day? at Lothringer 13 Halle in Munich at the end of March.
Visiting Curators is a joint project of the Bremen Artists' Association BBK, the Bremen Artists' Association, GEDOK, the Künstlerhaus Bremen and the Städtische Galerie Bremen. The Visiting Curators program will enter its next round in autumn 2023. The call for applications will be published in September. Applications are open to all professional artists working in Bremen who have completed their studies at an art academy or can prove that they are working professionally as an artist.

All Bremen visual artists are again invited to apply for a studio visit by an internationally active curator! Visiting Curators enables Bremen artists to meet and exchange with curators from abroad. The goal is to connect Bremen artists with curators and to provide them with professional feedback on their artistic work through one-on-one meetings in their studios (or in a room at Künstlerhaus Bremen). Five internationally active curators are invited to visit Bremen artists in the fall of 2022.

The visits will take place between the 8th and the 10th of November 2022, between approximately 9 am and 6 pm. Please keep the time period free. We will communicate the exact dates approximately three weeks in advance.

The guest curators are Stef Van Bellingen, Lisa Britzger, Anne Hagen Kielgast, Tobias Peper and Susanne Weiß.

Who can apply?

Applications are open to all professional artists from Bremen who have completed their studies at an art academy or who can prove that they are working professionally as an artist. There is no age limit.

How to apply?
The application documents include:

• filled out application form
• short biography with exhibition activities in German and English (1 page each)
• Portfolio (max. 10 pages and 10 MB) with German and English work details
  (for time-based media, please include links of online documentation and images)

Please send your documents digitally as PDF by e-mail to: assistenz@kuenstlerhausbremen.de.

How to be selected?
The Bremen artists name a first and second choice, for the curators they would like to meet.
Each guest curator will select 6 to 8 artists with whom he/she will meet.

Please note: The meetings with Stef Van Bellingen and Anne Hagen Kielgast will take place in English. All meetings will take place in compliance with the then required hygienic standards - we will inform participants in time.

Deadline for applications: Sunday, September 04, 2022, midnight!
Applications submitted after this time will not be considered.
Please direct any queries by email to: assistenz@kuenstlerhausbremen.de or by phone: 0421-508 598.

Visiting Curators is a joint project of the Bremen Artists* Association BBK, the Bremen Artists' Association, GEDOK, the Künstlerhaus Bremen and the Städtische Galerie Bremen. The format will take place for the fifth time in 2022 and is organized by Künstlerhaus Bremen.

Information on the Guest Curators 2022 

Stef Van Bellingen has been working as a curator since the early 1990s and has organized exhibitions in Brussels, Dakar, Dublin, London, Ljubljana, Ludwigshafen, The Hague, Venice and Vienna. He tries to establish long-term relationships and collaborations with artists and art institutes. Due to his origin (Caribbean) he is interested in a comparative perspective on art history and, based on his archaeological studies, he deals with the theme of deep time. He studied archaeology and art history at Ghent University and started his career at SMAK Ghent with several artistic collaborations with Jan Hoet. In 2006 he founded WARP, a contemporary art platform in Sint-Niklaas (Belgium) - the small town where he grew up. 
(Proposed by Arie Hartog, Director, Gerhard-Marcks-Haus) 

Lisa Britzger studied cultural studies and aesthetic practice in Hildesheim and began to realize exhibition projects at different venues in 2005 as a member of the curators’ collective a7.ausstellungen. She worked as assistant curator at the Kunstverein Munich, as director of the Kunstverein Hildesheim and in the team of the city curator Hamburg. From 2016 to 2018, she co-directed the Kunstverein Harburger Bahnhof in Hamburg with Jennifer Smailes and Annette Hans. Since January 2020, she has been curator of the urban art space Lothringer 13 Halle in Munich. She has realized projects with individual artists and repeatedly with groups such as Galerie BRD, COPS (Corporation of people's situations) or K Hybrid. In her curatorial practice she focuses on processual and context-specific projects, artistic research, a linking of artistic production, presentation and discourse as well as collaborative and communal methods and practices.
(Proposed by Annette Hans, Artistic Director and Executive Director, GAK Gesellschaft für aktuelle Kunst).

Anne Hagen Kielgast has been a curator at Kunstforeningen GL STRAND in Copenhagen, Denmark since 2006, where she now serves as lead curator. Under her direction, exhibitions have included Anette Harboe Flensburg: Montanasalen (2022), Thomas Hirschhorn: COMMUNITY OF FRAGMENTS (2021), Asger Harbou Gjerdevik: Driving Home for Christmas (2019). Previously, she worked as a consultant and manager for exhibitions in the municipality of Frederiksberg in Denmark. Kielgast studied art history, art criticism, and conservation at Humboldt University in Berlin and the University of Copenhagen.
(Proposed by Dr. Ingmar Lähnemann, Curator, Städtische Galerie Bremen).

Tobias Peper has been director of the Kunstverein Harburger Bahnhof since 2021. Previously, he worked for five years at the Kunstverein in Hamburg, where he curated exhibitions with FORT, Cana Bilir-Meier, Hannah Perry, Matheus Rocha Pitta and Prem Sahib, among others. Previously, he completed his traineeship at the Migros Museum für Gegenwartskunst in Zurich and studied art history, sociology and German philology in Cologne. Tobias Peper is the editor of Lerato Shadi’s first monograph, published by Archive Books in 2022, and regularly publishes texts on contemporary artistic positions.
(Proposed by Janneke de Vries, Director, Weserburg Museum of Modern Art).

Susanne Weiß is a museologist working at the intersection of curating and mediating. Since March 2021, she has co-directed the ifa Gallery in Berlin with Inka Gressel. From 2017 to 2021 she worked as a lecturer for special tasks at Burg Giebichenstein Kunsthochschule Halle with a focus on exhibiting, presenting, network art. From 2012 - 2016 she directed the Heidelberger Kunstverein, for which she conceived various exhibition series that expanded the radius of the exhibition and the static format of the exhibition in a site-specific way. In the fall of 2013, she was a fellow at the Tarabya Cultural Academy in Istanbul. Since 2015, she has been developing the ifa touring exhibition "The Event of a Thread/Das Ereignis eines Threadens" together with Inka Gressel for the Institute for Foreign Cultural Relations, which takes global narratives in the medium of textiles as its point of departure.
(Proposed by Nadja Quante, Artistic Director/Curator, Künstlerhaus Bremen).

Review Visiting Curators 2020/21

We are happy to announce that the fourth round of the Visiting Curators program could finally take place in Bremen! We are very happy to welcome four internationally active curators to Bremen and the Künstlerhaus in October 2021.

Invited were Krist Gruijthuijsen (curator and director of KW Institute for Contemporary Art in Berlin), who was invited by Janneke de Vries from the Weserburg, Nadia Lichtig (curator, researcher, artist and professor at MOCO (Montpellier Contemporain)), invited by Dr. Mona Schieren from the Hochschule für Künste Bremen, Katrin Peters-Klaphake (research fellow at the Bayreuth International Graduate School of African Studies (BIGSAS), University of Bayreuth and associate curator at the Makerere Art Gallery/Institute for Heritage Conservation and Restoration (IHCR), Makerere University, Kampala)), invited by Ingmar Lähnemann from the Städtische Galerie, and Moritz Scheper (freelance journalist, curator and director of the Neuer Essener Kunstverein).
Aneta Rostkowska (curator, researcher, writer and director of Temporary Gallery, Center for Contemporary Art in Cologne) will make her visit in December 2021 for various reasons.

This year, the support program has again led to a lively exchange between artists from Bremen and curators from abroad. The feedback from the visiting artists and curators was very positive. Moritz Scheper, for example, said that it was a lot of fun to get to know the city's artists, their works and working situations. The artist Bo Su states affirmative: "I find the whole concept of the program absolutely convincing. I think "Visiting Curators" can build a bridge to establish trans-regional networks that, if necessary, make it possible to make artistic positions from Bremen known elsewhere! And even if no further consequences develop after the first encounter, the exchange alone was also insightful and enriching. I hope many other artists* in Bremen will be able to take advantage of this program in the future."

We are glad about the lively participation and are looking forward to the pending visit of Aneta Rostkowska in December of this year.

Visiting Curators 2020/21: first artist meetings with Nadia Lichtig

The first meetings between Bremen based artists and visiting curator Nadia Lichtig (curator, researcher, artist and professor at MOCO Montpellier Contemporain) took place on April 26 and April 27, 2021. Due to the pandemic, the conversations were conducted digitally. Artists still had the opportunity to network and receive feedback on their own artistic work, as well as current projects in a detailed exchange. Further meetings between participating artists from Bremen and this year’s visiting curators will take place as on site as studio visits in October, as far as possible.

Open call to all Bremen artists

Visiting Curators 2020/21

Open call to all Bremen artists

Visiting Curators 2019

All Bremen artists are invited to apply for a studio visit by an internationally active curator!

Visiting Curators enables Bremen artists to meet and exchange ideas with foreign curators. The aim is to network Bremen artists with curators and to give them professional feedback on their artistic work through individual discussions in their studios (or in a room at Künstlerhaus Bremen). Five internationally active curators are invited to visit Bremen artists in autumn 2019. They were selected by curators from Bremen's contemporary art institutions (Kunsthalle Bremen, Weserburg, Städtische Galerie, GAK and Künstlerhaus Bremen).

Visits will take place between 5 and 7 November 2019.

Guest curators are Dr. Monika Bayer-Wermuth, Dr. Sven Beckstette, Anja Casser, Luisa Heese and Natasha Marie Llorens (12 and 13 November).

Who can apply?

Applications are open to all professional artists from Bremen who have completed their studies at an art academy or can prove that they work professionally as artists. There is no age limit.

How to apply?

The application documents must include:

• completed application form
• short biography with exhibition activities in German and English (1 page each)
• portfolio (max. 10 pages and 10 MB) with German and English work details

(for time-based media, please insert links from online documentation and images)

Please send your application digitally as pdf by e-mail to: assistenz@kuenstlerhausbremen.de

How to be selected?

The applying artists name a first and a second election for the curator they would like to meet.
Each guest curator selects 6 to 8 artists with whom he/she will meet.
Please note: The meetings with Natasha Marie Llorens will be held exclusively in English.

Deadline for applications: Sunday, 2 June 2019, midnight!

Applications submitted later will unfortunately not be considered.
If you have any questions, please contact us via e-mail: buero@kuenstlerhausbremen.de or telephone: 0049 421 508 598.
Visiting Curators is a cooperation of Bremer Künstlerverband BBK, Künstlerinnenverband Bremen GEDOK, Künstlerhaus Bremen and Städtische Galerie Bremen, organised by Künstlerhaus Bremen.