Chris Dercon

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Chris Dercon, İstanbul Modern , 2015
Chris Dercon on Ràdio Web MACBA , the online channel of the Museu d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona , in September 2013

Chris Dercon (born July 30, 1958 in Lier ) is a Belgian curator and theater scholar. He was director of the Haus der Kunst in Munich as well as the Tate Gallery of Modern Art in London and from August 2017 to April 13, 2018 director of the Volksbühne Berlin . Since January 2019 he has been the new President of the Association of National Museums and the Grand Palais des Champs-Élysées in Paris.

Life

Dercon studied art history , theater studies and film theory in Amsterdam and Leiden from 1976 to 1982 . He then worked as a freelancer for art and culture at Belgian radio and television and from 1983 to 1988 at the Sint-Lukas Hoger Instituut voor Beeldende Kunsten (Brussels) as a lecturer in the fields of video and cinema. In 1988 Dercon moved to New York as Program Director at MoMA PS1 . In 1990 he became director of the Witte de With , Center for Contemporary Art, in Rotterdam. In 1994 he was the artistic director of Documenta X nominated. In 1996 he realized the exhibition Face à l'histoire for the Center Georges Pompidou in Paris. From 1996 to April 2003, Chris Dercon was director at the Boijmans Van Beuningen Museum in Rotterdam.

Director of the House of Art in Munich

From May 2003 to March 2011 Chris Dercon was director of the Haus der Kunst in Munich. In addition to working with contemporary art, he also continued working with architecture, design, fashion, film and photography in the Haus der Kunst program. He also initiated a “critical dismantling” of the house: structural changes that were considered architectural denazification after the Second World War were reversed in order to reveal the origins of the house and enable a discussion of its history. Under Dercon's direction, the Haus der Kunst invited numerous contemporary artists and cultural workers to critically reinterpret the monumental spaces: Patti Smith , Yoko Ono , Zaha Hadid , Rem Koolhaas , Robert Storr , Christoph Schlingensief and Ai Weiwei .

Director of Tate Modern in London

During his time at the Tate Gallery of Modern Art (2011 to 2016), he managed to increase public interest significantly. This justified an extension by the architects Herzog & de Meuron , which was opened in 2016 by Dercon's successor in office, Frances Morris .

Director of the Volksbühne Berlin

Berlin's governing mayor and Senator for Culture Michael Müller announced at the end of April 2015 that Chris Dercon would succeed Frank Castorf as director of the Volksbühne Berlin from 2017 . The decision had been prepared by Secretary of State for Culture Tim Renner .

Many Volksbühne employees and the artistic director of the Berliner Ensemble , Claus Peymann , rejected Dercon and his plans for the development of the house. The criticism read: With Dercon, the Berlin Volksbühne is being uprooted and internationalized. Dercon stands for an "exchangeable, transit theater produced for global festival operations". The globalized art market took over a city theater that had a strong profile in the world. Virtually all of Berlin's well-known directors were critical of the change.

With Dercon, there is not only a change of director, but a system change. The Volksbühne should be dissolved as repertoire and ensemble theater, spoken theater should be replaced by performance and dance. Instead, a curator model , an event brand, an international label should be installed. The theater was renamed from Volksbühne am Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz to Volksbühne Berlin . In September 2017 the house was occupied by opponents of Dercon.

On April 13, 2018, it became known that Dercon and the Berlin Senator for Culture, Klaus Lederer, agreed to immediately end Dercon's involvement at the Volksbühne. The decision was made by mutual agreement, it said in a statement by the cultural administration.

Private

Chris Dercon was married to the Munich gallery owner Sonja Junkers from 2011, and has been married to the actress and literary scholar Birte Carolin von Knoblauch since 2018 .

List of exhibitions curated by Chris Dercon at the Haus der Kunst

  • Carlo Mollino - Maniera Moderna (September 16, 2011 to January 8, 2012). Catalog.
  • Theatergarten Bestiarium (March 28, 2011 to July 31, 2011)
  • Future Beauty. 30 years of Japanese fashion (March 4, 2011 to June 19, 2011)
  • Future of tradition - tradition of the future. 100 years after the exhibition "Masterpieces of Muslim Art" in Munich (September 17, 2010 to January 9, 2011)
  • Thomas Mayfried. Ephemera. Graphic design etc. (May 21, 2010 to August 22, 2010)
  • Ai Weiwei. So sorry (October 12, 2009 to January 17, 2010)
  • Maison Martin Margiela. '20' the exhibition (March 20, 2009 to June 1, 2009)
  • Apichatpong Weerasethakul. Primitive (February 20, 2009 to June 1, 2009)
  • Made in Munich. Editions from 1968 to 2008 (November 21, 2008 to February 22, 2009)
  • Garin Nugroho. Opera Jawa (September 19, 2008 to January 11, 2009)
  • Traces of the spiritual. Traces du Sacré (September 19, 2008 to January 11, 2009)
  • Rupprecht Geiger . Stock up on color for new energy (January 25, 2008 to May 8, 2008)
  • Anish Kapoor. Svayambh (October 18, 2007 to January 21, 2008)
  • Gilbert & George. The big exhibition (June 11, 2007 to September 9, 2007)
  • Yayoi Kusama. Dots obsession - love transformed into dots (February 9, 2007 to May 6, 2007)
  • Amrita Sher-Gil. An Indian Family of Artists in the 20th Century (October 3, 2006 to January 7, 2007)
  • Herzog & de Meuron. No. 250 - one exhibition (May 12, 2006 to July 30, 2006)
  • Konstantin Grcic. Industrial design. On / off (March 16, 2006 to July 30, 2006)
  • Occupying space. Generali Foundation Collection (March 9, 2005 to May 16, 2005)
  • Florian Süssmayr. Pictures for German museums (February 17, 2005 to May 1, 2005)
  • The image of Europe. Amo / Rem Koolhaas and foreign policy center (October 11, 2004 to January 9, 2005)
  • Utopia Station. On the way to Porto Alegre (October 7, 2004 to January 16, 2005)
  • Simply Droog. 10 + 1 years of avant-garde design from Holland (March 18, 2004 to May 31, 2004)
  • Strange messenger: the work of Patti Smith. An exhibition by the Andy Warhol Museum. One of the four carnegie museums of Pittsburgh (December 19, 2003 to February 29, 2004)
  • Partners (November 7, 2003 to February 15, 2004) (brought to Munich by Thomas Weski, then chief curator at Haus der Kunst)

Publications

  • as co-editor: Carlo Mollino. Maniera moderna. König, Cologne 2011, ISBN 978-3-86335-020-8 .
  • Resurrection and rebirth. The Munich Film Museum is 50 years old and yet it is very much alive - as this well-congratulator, fan and long-time neighbor at the Haus der Kunst can testify. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung , November 28, 2013, p. 14.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Chris Dercon "I'm not a museum man - I come from the theater" , Deutschlandradio Kultur from April 25, 2015
  2. ↑ Okwui Enwezor is the new boss at Haus der Kunst Süddeutsche Zeitung , edition of January 19, 2011
  3. ^ WORLD: Volksbühnen director Chris Dercon resigns . In: THE WORLD . April 13, 2018 ( welt.de [accessed April 13, 2018]).
  4. ↑ a b Neue Zürcher Zeitung: Seducers and Changers , April 27, 2015
  5. ↑ Chris Dercon: "Collaborate or fail" , contribution from April 24, 2015 in Deutschlandradio Kultur , accessed April 24, 2015
  6. ^ Volksbühne Berlin - Artists protest against change of artistic director. Deutschlandradio Kultur, June 20, 2016
  7. ↑ Peymann: Müller should prevent Dercon. rbb broadcasting Berlin-Brandenburg. June 21, 2016, archived from the original on June 22, 2016 .;
  8. ↑ a b Poor Herr Dercon. zeit.de, June 23, 2016.
  9. ↑ Who will take up space next? Retrieved July 17, 2019 .
  10. ↑ Klaus Lederer and Chris Dercon agree to end the directorship. In: Press release from April 13, 2018. Berlin Senate Department for Culture and Europe, accessed on April 13, 2018 .
  11. ↑ Press report evening newspaper
  12. ↑ " press report LesEchoes
  13. ↑ hausderkunst.de, 2003-11 ( Memento from February 21, 2011 in the Internet Archive )
personal data
SURNAME Dercon, Chris
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Belgian curator and theater scholar
DATE OF BIRTH July 30, 1958
PLACE OF BIRTH Lier , Belgium