Karola Kraus

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Karola Kraus (born Karola Grässlin in St. Georgen in the Black Forest on January 23, 1961 ) is a German art historian.

Live and act

Karola Kraus was born in 1961 as the daughter of Anna and Dieter Grässlin, who built up an important collection of German Informel , the Grässlin Collection , in the 1970s . Since the 1980s, the Grässlin family's collection has concentrated on artistic positions from the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s. As a child, she met numerous artists through her parents' activities as a collector. Her encounter with Martin Kippenberger in the early 1980s had a decisive influence on the decision to deal with contemporary art. In 1982 she began studying art history, modern German literature and classical archeology in Stuttgart, and one year later she moved to Munich. She completed her studies with a master's thesis “Wols. The early work in comparison to surrealism ”from Uwe M. Schneede .

In 1990 Kraus became a project assistant at the “Metropolis” exhibition in Berlin, for which she assisted 25 international artists. From 1991 to 1994 she directed the non-commercial exhibition space "K-raum Daxer", which had set itself the goal of showing international artists from the 1980s and 1990s. She then became the personal advisor and administrator of the Johannes and Louise Daxer Collection. From 1995, Kraus worked out the logistics of the biannual buying meetings of Deutsche Bank. From 1996 to 1998 she was Katharina Sieverding's personal assistant , for whom she had numerous international exhibitions, including her contribution to the German Pavilion of the XLVII. Biennale in Venice (1997), her retrospective in the Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen (1997/98) and in the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam (1998). In 1998 Kraus was involved in founding the INIT-Kunsthalle, a member association that initiated exhibitions in Berlin, Moscow and Athens.

From 1999 to 2006 Kraus was director of the Braunschweig Art Association , where she presented international artistic positions from the 1960s to 2000s after a thorough renovation. She succeeded in bringing the art association to the rank of internationally important institutions. In collaboration with the city of Braunschweig, she curated the “Braunschweig Parcours 2004”, for which 12 international artists realized installations in the public space of the city of Braunschweig.

In 2006 Kraus took over the management of the State Art Gallery in Baden-Baden . There she continued the conceptual and minimalist tradition of the house with exhibitions such as “Who's Afraid of Red, Yellow and Blue - Positions of Color Field Painting” (2007) and “From Surface to Space - Kazimir Malevich and Early Modernism” (2009) and presented contemporary conceptual and minimalist artists such as Stephen Prina (2007), Nairy Baghramian (2008), Christopher Williams (2010) and Daniel Buren (2010).

The cooperation with the neighboring Museum Frieder Burda was shown in a retrospective by Georg Baselitz , in which his paintings were shown in the Museum Frieder Burda and his sculptures in the Staatliche Kunsthalle Baden-Baden.

Kraus curated exhibitions in Miami Beach and New York. In 2008 she had a teaching position at the State Academy of Fine Arts in Karlsruhe and from 2007 to 2010 at the Albert Ludwig University of Freiburg. In October 2010 Karola Kraus became director of the Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig ( MUMOK ), Vienna. In March 2020 she was confirmed in this position for a further term.

Selected exhibitions

Exhibitions at the Kunstverein Braunschweig

  • Mike Kelley - Two Projects: Sublevel: Dim Recollection Illuminated by Multicolored Swamp Gas. Deodorized Central Mass with Satellites (September 4 - October 31, 1999).
  • Cosima von Bonin. The Cousins ​​(February 5 - March 26, 2000).
  • Bas Jan Ader . Films, photographs, projections, videos and drawings from the years 1967 - 1975 (April 8 - June 4, 2000).
  • Poul Gernes. Works from 1960 to 1996 (March 23 - May 26, 2002).
  • Martin Kippenberger. Multiples (March 1 - May 4, 2003).
  • Stefan Müller and Sergej Jensen : Hofheim, New York, Braunschweig (2003).
  • Yayoi Kusama. Works from the years 1949 to 2003 (November 29, 2003 - February 8, 2004).
  • Catherine Sullivan. Ice floes of Franz Joseph Land. House of Alex / house of Peter (and some of those crappy details) (September 4 - November 7, 2004).
  • Chéri Samba. Les débuts de Chéri Samba (March 5th - May 1st, 2005).
  • Art from Los Angeles from the 1960s to the 1990s (February 2, 2006 - February 18, 2007).

Exhibitions in the State Art Gallery Baden-Baden

  • Who's Afraid of Red, Yellow and Blue? Positions of color field painting (July 21 - September 30, 2007)
  • André Cadere. Peinture sans fin (October 27, 2007 - January 20, 2008)
  • Nairy Baghramian. The Walker's Day Off (May 10 - July 6, 2008)
  • Stephen Prina. The Second Sentence of Everything I Read Is You (July 20 - October 5, 2008)
  • From surface to space. Malevich and the early modern age. Large state exhibition for the 100th anniversary of the State Art Gallery Baden-Baden (October 25, 2008 - January 25, 2009)
  • 7 × 14 (February 14 - July 12, 2009)
  • Entre deux actes. Loge de comédienne (July 25, 2009 - October 11, 2009)
  • Georg Baselitz. 50 years of painting. 30 years of sculpture (October 24, 2009 - February 21, 2010) in cooperation with the Museum Frieder Burda
  • Stefan Müller. Slope (March 13 - April 25, 2010)
  • Christopher Williams. For Example: Dix-Huit Leçons Sur La Société Industrielle (Revision 11) (June 12 - August 29, 2010)
  • "Every artist is a person!" - Positions of the self-portrait (September 11 - November 21, 2010)
  • Daniel Buren (December 11, 2010 - February 27, 2011)

Exhibitions in the mumok - Museum of Modern Art Ludwig Foundation, Vienna

  • Class reunion. Works from the Gaby and Wilhelm Schürmann Collection (June 23 - November 11, 2018)
  • Optik Schröder II. Works from the Schröder Collection (February 3 - May 27, 2018)
  • Cosima von Bonin. HIPPIES USE SIDE DOOR. THE YEAR 2014 HAS A WHEEL OFF (4th October 2014 - 18th January 2015)
  • Museum of Wishes (September 10, 2011 - January 8, 2012)

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Kraus, Karola
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Grässlin, Karola (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German art historian
DATE OF BIRTH January 23, 1961
PLACE OF BIRTH St. Georgen in the Black Forest