Berlin’s KW Institute for Contemporary Art Announces New Artistic Team

The Berlin institution is entering a new, ambitious phase.

Krist Gruijthuijsen, director of KW, and his artistic team. From left to right: Leaver-Yap, Anna Gritz, Krist Gruijthuijsen, Maurin Dietrich, Tirdad Zolghadr, Cathrin Mayer, Marc Hollenstein. Photo Ali Kepenek. courtesy KW.

The KW Institute for Contemporary Art in Berlin has announced a whole new artistic team as part of its reshuffle following the appointment of Krist Gruijthuijsen as its new director.

The new line-up will feature Anna Gritz as curator, Leaver-Yap and Tirdad Zolghadr as associate curators, Maurin Dietrich and Cathrin Mayer as assistant curators and project managers, and Marc Hollenstein as graphic designer.

The restructuring falls shortly after the close of the 9th Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art, for which the KW Institute served as the main location. The change was made possible thanks to an increase in the institution’s subsidy from the Berlin Senate Chancellery and the new director’s wide network of artists.

Anna Gritz made her reputation as a curator for film and performance at London’s South London Gallery, where she programmed performance, films, and exhibitions and commissioned new works by artists including Kapwani Kiwanga, veteran comic performer Michael Smith, and Juliette Blightman.

Zolghadr’s portfolio includes a number of projects and biennial settings. Traction, his curatorial polemic, will be published by Sternberg Press in August, and the working title of his third novel is Headbanger.

Leaver-Yap, who was until recently the director of LUX Scotland, a support and promotion agency for artists working with moving image in Scotland, also works closely with artists to produce publications.

Maurin Dietrich has worked as a curatorial assistant in KW’s artistic office before, and is currently working on the Young Curators Workshop “Post-Contemporary Art” within the 9th Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art. Cathrin Mayer also joined the team of the 9th Berlin Biennale as a curatorial assistant for the collective DIS.

Meanwhile, the graphic designer Marc Hollenstein works with several different institutions and in recent years has designed many publications, including Mierle Laderman Ukeles: Seven Work Ballets (2015), Josef Bauer—Works 1965–Today (2015), and Oceans of Love: The Uncontainable Gregory Battcock (2016).


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