Sean Rainbird

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Sean Rainbird (* 1959 in Hong Kong ) is an English art historian . From 2006 to 2012 he directed the Staatsgalerie Stuttgart and since then the National Gallery of Ireland in Dublin .

Live and act

Sean Rainbird studied art history and German at University College London , the University of Freiburg and the Free University of Berlin . He earned a piano teaching diploma in 1996 and a diploma in administrative management from Kingston University in 2001 . Rainbird taught art history at University College London before taking up his position as curator for the Tate Gallery in London in 1987 . There he focused on German art of the early 20th century as well as contemporary British and international art. From 1990 he organized numerous exhibitions, e.g. B. on Wassily Kandinsky , Max Beckmann , Joseph Beuys , Gerhard Richter and Per Kirkeby . Rainbird was responsible for the acquisition of important works by artists such as Jeff Wall , Bill Viola , Rachel Whiteread , Thomas Struth and Georg Baselitz . As curator of the Tate Gallery, he was also responsible for organizing the annual exhibition of the respective winner of the Turner Prize , who had previously been determined by a well-known international jury.

Director of the State Gallery in Stuttgart

In June 2005, the Prime Minister of Baden-Württemberg Günther Oettinger announced that Sean Rainbird would take over the management of the Staatsgalerie Stuttgart as the successor to Christian von Holst (* 1941). Rainbird took office on November 1, 2006.

When Rainbird took office, he was confronted with numerous tasks that limited the capacities for museum work: the renovation of the ground floor of the Alte Staatsgalerie , which lasted from 2006 to the end of 2008, the economic transformation of the Staatsgalerie into a state company and dealing with one over one developed overhang in unauthorized places. Nonetheless, Rainbird was able to dispose of start-up capital of almost 1.6 million euros when he took office in 2006, which his predecessor Christian von Holst had generated in additional income for the Staatsgalerie with his very popular Monet exhibition.

In connection with the significantly lower number of visitors, Rainbird proposed free entry to the collections of the State Gallery in Stuttgart in January 2008. With the support of sponsors, after the reopening of the Alte Staatsgalerie in December 2008, free admission to the museum's collection was implemented for half a year. This tripled the number of visitors to the collection for this period.

Rainbird's concept of initially concentrating on the reorganization of the permanent exhibition led to controversial statements in the German feature pages . It was written about the “decay of an attraction” and the “Stuttgart shaking principle” as well as about a “new overview, new view” . However, all too few exhibition ideas left the art scene in Stuttgart more and more behind compared to cities like Frankfurt and Munich.

Since he took office, numerous exhibition projects have been realized from the collections, such as Kollwitz - Beckmann - Dix - Grosz in 2011 . Wartime and Open Depot 01 - The Empty Plan .

Eduard Beaucamp praised Rainbird's work in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung on May 6, 2011: “A particular stroke of luck is Sean Rainbird, the English director of the Staatsgalerie in Stuttgart, who works sensitively, vividly and with a historical dimension with and out of the collection large exhibitions developed. "

Director of the National Gallery of Ireland

Rainbird left Stuttgart in April 2012 and moved to the National Gallery of Ireland in Dublin . Rainbird's assumption of office was not a lucky star there: On June 29, 2012, a painting by Claude Monet was seriously damaged as a result of an incident with a visitor. Because of irregular fee payments, which became known to the Irish public in November 2013, Rainbird got again in the headlines as director of the National Gallery. Together with the Chair of the Board of Governors & Guardians, Dr. Olive Braiden, Sean Rainbird had to appear before a committee of public accounts and answer personally.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. Clare Henry: Sean Rainbird - Art curator, Tate Modern, London, England ( Memento from July 10, 2012 in the web archive archive.today ) , Artforum , April 2000
  2. ^ The Turner Prize Year by Year
  3. Sean Rainbird becomes head of the Staatsgalerie Stuttgart  ( page no longer available , search in web archivesInfo: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Toter Link / mwk.baden-wuerttemberg.de   , Press release of MWK Baden-Württemberg , June 22, 2005
  4. Sean Rainbird: Also wants to address a younger audience  ( page no longer available , search in web archivesInfo: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Toter Link / mwk.baden-wuerttemberg.de   , Press release of the MWK Baden-Württemberg, November 6, 2006.
  5. [1]  ( Page no longer available , search in web archivesInfo: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Toter Link / content.stuttgarter-zeitung.de   , Stuttgarter Zeitung, December 11, 2008, accessed January 23, 2009.
  6. [2]  ( Page no longer available , search in web archivesInfo: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 40 kB)@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / www.landtag-bw.de   State Parliament of Baden-Württemberg, 14th electoral period, printed matter 14/6629 of July 15, 2010, accessed May 4, 2011.
  7. [3] Memorandum on budget and economic management of the state of Baden-Württemberg with comments on the budget accounting for the financial year 2004, Audit Office Baden-Württemberg, 2006, p. 186, accessed April 5, 2011.
  8. Staatsgalerie complains about a dwindling number of visitors ( memento from September 14, 2012 in the web archive archive.today ), Stuttgarter Zeitung , January 31, 2008.
  9. Director wants free entry to the collection  ( page no longer available , search in web archivesInfo: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Stuttgarter Nachrichten , January 31, 2008.@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / www.stuttgarter-nachrichten.de  
  10. Free entry: Staatsgalerie triples visitor numbers ( memento from September 18, 2012 in the web archive archive.today ), Stuttgarter Zeitung , June 25, 2009.
  11. Nikolai B. Forstbauer: "I'm not putting my cards on the table yet" ( Memento from September 10, 2012 in the web archive archive.today ), Stuttgarter Nachrichten , March 13, 2008.
  12. Bernhard Schulz: From joke to stair joke , Tagesspiegel, January 15, 2008.
  13. Hans-Joachim Müller: Das Stuttgarter Schüttelprinzip , Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , July 18, 2008.
  14. ^ Christian Gampert: New overview, new view , Deutschlandradio Kultur , July 25, 2008.
  15. Georg Leisten: Plans for 2010 - The State Gallery relies entirely on gray. ( Memento of February 11, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) In: Stuttgarter Zeitung of February 5, 2010, accessed on July 14, 2011.
  16. ^ [4] Staatsgalerie Stuttgart, review of exhibitions
  17. Many curators, no quality feats , www.faz.net, accessed May 17, 2011.
  18. Sean Rainbird: "It's time for me to move on" in: Stuttgarter Zeitung , December 1, 2011.
  19. Man accused of damaging € 10m Monet in bail bid in: Independent.ie, December 6, 2013.
  20. Squeals of outrage at porkies over who gets the bacon in: Irish Examiner, November 23, 2013.
  21. ^ Committee of Public Accounts Staff Appointments in the National Gallery of Ireland (youtube.com)