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Franz Wilhelm Kaiser Named as New Director of the Bucerius Kunst Forum

From The Hague to Hamburg: On June 1, 2016, Dr. Franz Wilhelm Kaiser, from Gemeentemuseum Den Haag, will take over as Artistic Director of the Bucerius Kunst Forum in Hamburg. Kaiser’s predecessor, Dr. Ortrud Westheider, guided the Zeit-Stiftung Ebelin und Gerd Bucerius’ private exhibition house for almost ten years.

Prof. Dr. Michael Göring, Chairman of the ZEIT Foundation, which operates the Bucerius Art Forum, emphasized: “The choice of Franz Wilhelm Kaiser to succeed Ortrud Westheider easy for us: after working in Kassel, Eindhoven, Lyon, Grenoble and The Hague, the native Rhinelander comes now to Hamburg. Franz Wilhelm Kaiser has extensive curatorial experience and has occupied leadership roles at numerous international museums. Franz Wilhelm Kaiser is a win for our exhibition space and for its representation of cultural life in Hamburg.”

Kaiser started his career after studying art in Kassel, including the period during which the local “Documenta 7” was shown in 1982. Since 1989, he has been Director of Exhibition at the Gemeentemuseum. In addition, Kaiser is responsible for organizing exhibitions at the Fotomuseum and gem Museum of Contemporary Art, both also based in The Hague.

The widespread curatorial experiences of the future Director of Bucerius Kunst Forum include a range from Yannis Kounellis, Sol LeWitt, and Serge Spitzer, to Wassily Kandinsky, Lucian Freud, and Mark Rothko. Some of his exhibitions include “From Monet to Matisse”, “Art and Religion in Russia”, “Cézanne – Picasso – Mondrian” and an Karel Appel retrospective. Through these exhibits Kaiser has worked with some of the world’s largest and more important collections, and created intellectually-stimulating and visitor-oriented exhibition concepts.

You can find Dr. Kaiser’s CV in German here and in English here.

To read the original post (in German), click here.

For further questions, please contact the ZEIT-Stiftung:
Frauke Hamann
Director of Communications
+49 040 41336871
hamann[at]zeit-stiftung.de