Christoph Vitali

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Christoph Vitali (2013)

Christoph Vitali (born September 28, 1940 in Zurich ; † December 18, 2019 there ) was a Swiss exhibition curator , museum director and art author.

Career

Christoph Vitali grew up in Zurich as the son of art-loving parents. His father was the sculptor Antonio Vitali (1909–2008), his mother was a teacher. After attending the Rämibühl literary high school and graduating from high school in 1959, he began studying liberal arts at Princeton University , New Jersey . In the fall of 1960 he began studying law at the University of Zurich . In 1962/63 he attended lectures in Spanish language, literature and art history at the University of Granada . He then continued his law studies in Zurich and also worked for Heinrich Schalcher's law firm in Winterthur . In 1968 he completed his studies with a licentiate and the grade magna cum laude and passed the bar exam in the canton of Zurich . Vitali took up a position at the cultural department of the city of Zurich in 1969 and was its head from 1971 to 1978. Among other things, he was responsible for the museums, the theaters ( Schauspielhaus Zürich , Theater am Neumarkt and Theater am Hechtplatz ) and a communal cinema.

Act

In 1979 Vitali went to Frankfurt am Main as administrative director of the Städtische Bühnen , where he was in charge of opera and ballet as well as drama and chamber plays. From 1985 to 1993 Vitali was managing director and first director of the newly opened Kunsthalle Schirn in Frankfurt , with which the management of the Künstlerhaus Mousonturm and the Theater am Turm was connected. He curated pioneering exhibitions that were also successful with the public. His inaugural exhibition, The Painters and the Theater in the 20th Century, realized with Erika Billeter and Denis Bablet, expanded the topic encyclopedically with 1,000 exhibits. His Kandinsky retrospective, shown in 1990, had almost 200,000 visitors. In 1991 the Kunsthalle Schirn already had over 411,000 visitors. The exhibition The Great Utopia - Russian Art 1915–1932 also met with a remarkable response in the press. In 1992 he showed Marc Chagall in the Schirn : the Russian years, 1906–1922 with seven murals that Marc Chagall had painted in 1920 for the Jewish Theater in Moscow and which had long been neglected in a depot. The paintings were extensively restored for the exhibition.

"Setting up exhibitions is the most beautiful task: one can always indulge in new topics enthusiastically like a woman: but not one, but one can be polygamous."

- Christoph Vitali

In 1994 Vitali moved to the Haus der Kunst in Munich as director . After a renovation phase lasting several years, it opened in May 1994 with the exhibition Elan Vital or Das Auge des Eros with works by Kandinsky, Arp and Klee and subsequently ensured the building's reputation. Vitali said goodbye to Munich with the exhibition Barocke Sammellust and in April 2004 became director of the Fondation Beyeler in Riehen near Basel. In 2008 he succeeded the resigned Wenzel Jacob as interim director of the Art and Exhibition Hall of the Federal Republic of Germany in Bonn .

Vitali was married and the father of three grown children.

Awards

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Obituary notice . In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung , December 27, 2019. Accessed December 27, 2019.
  2. ↑ Neue Zürcher Zeitung of December 27, 2019: The legendary exhibition curator Christoph Vitali has died, by Roman Bucheli , accessed on December 30, 2019
  3. ↑ His father was also a well-known designer of children's wooden toys The Art in Play. In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung , February 14, 2003.
  4. ^ Desired partner , in: Der Spiegel, March 9, 1992
  5. ↑ Ursula Bode: The revolution lights up , in: Die Zeit No. 12 of March 13, 1992
  6. ↑ Website Bayerischer Rundfunk (pdf)
  7. ↑ ptz / dpa: Renowned art curator: Christoph Vitali is dead . In: Spiegel Online . December 29, 2019 ( spiegel.de [accessed December 29, 2019]).
personal data
SURNAME Vitali, Christoph
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss curator and museum director
DATE OF BIRTH September 28, 1940
PLACE OF BIRTH Zurich
DATE OF DEATH 18th December 2019
Place of death Zurich