Klaus Biesenbach

Klaus Biesenbach (born 1966) is a German curator and museum director.

He is the Director of the Neue Nationalgalerie, with Berggruen Museum and Scharf-Gerstenberg Collection, as well as the Berlin Museum of Modern Art under construction, Museum des 20.

Jahrhunderts.

Biesenbach was born in 1966, in Bergisch Gladbach, West Germany.

From 1987, he began studying medicine in Munich.

He moved to Berlin in the mid-1990s, where he shared an apartment with artist Andrea Zittel at one point.

Biesenbach founded Kunst-Werke Institute for Contemporary Art (KW) in Berlin in 1991, as well as the Berlin Biennale in 1996, and remains Founding Director of both entities.

Under his artistic and executive directorship, KW and the Berlin Biennale were started as self-inventive initiatives and are now federally and state funded institutions.

Biesenbach joined MoMA PS1 as a curator in 1996; the museum's director Alanna Heiss had hired him part-time while allowing him to maintain his directorship in Berlin.

Working with Heiss, he created the "Warm Up" outdoor summer series of live music and helped found the "Greater New York" exhibition series, which showcases emerging talent in the metropolitan area.

In addition to his role at MoMA, Biesenbach served as member of the International Jury at the Venice Biennale (1997) and as co-curator of the Berlin Biennale (1998) and 2002 Shanghai Biennale (2002).

In 2004, Biesenbach was appointed as a curator in the MoMA's "Department of Film and Media".

He was named Chief Curator of MoMA's newly formed Department of Media, in 2006; it was the first new curatorial department since photography, in 1940.

By 2009, it was subsequently broadened to the Department of Media and Performance Art to reflect the Museum's increased focus on collecting, preserving, and exhibiting performance art.

He also received AICA awards for co-curating the exhibitions Kenneth Anger, 100 Years (version #2, ps1, nov 2009), and Roth Time: A Dieter Roth Retrospective and 100 Years (version #2 PS1, Nov 2009) at MoMA PS1 and MoMA QNS, as well as Kenneth Anger (2009) at MoMA PS1 and 100 Years (version #2 PS1, Nov 2009) at MoMA PS1 and MoMA QNS, as well as Kenneth Anger (2009) at MoMA PS1.

25 Virtual Studio Visits

Klaus Biesenbach has also contributed texts to exhibition catalogs as well as edited volumes, and he has published articles in art journals, including Art & Australia, Artforum International, and Flash Art International.

He wrote the monthly column "Erdkunde" for the German art magazine Monopol.

As Chief Curator of the department, Biesenbach led a range of pioneering initiatives, including the launch of a new performance art exhibition series; an ongoing series of workshops for artists and curators; acquisitions of media and performance art; and the Museum's presentation in 2010 of a major retrospective of the work of Marina Abramović.

In 2012, Biesenbach turned MoMA P.S. 1 into a temporary day shelter for displaced residents after Hurricane Sandy.

He drafted an open letter to the then New York City Mayor, Michael R. Bloomberg and fellow New Yorkers that called for help in the Rockaways – where he had purchased a house in early 2012 –, signed by celebrities including Lady Gaga, Madonna, James Franco, Gwyneth Paltrow and Patti Smith.

Previously, Biesenbach had been serving as the director of The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (MOCA), from 2018 to 2021.

He is also a former Chief Curator at Large at The Museum of Modern Art in New York City and former director of MoMA PS1.

He is also the founding director of Kunst-Werke Institute for Contemporary Art (KW) in Berlin, and the Berlin Biennale.

In 2018, Biesenbach was appointed director of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles.

During his time as director, Biesenbach introduced free admission to the museum with a $10 million gift from Carolyn Clark Powers, founded the first Environmental Council at any American museum and started the Performance Space Wonmi's Warehouse Programs while commissioning Larry Bell's, Bill and Coo and Untitled by Barbara Kruger as public art projects.

As director, Biesenbach diversified the collection and exhibition program by supporting exhibitions with artists like Xu Zhen, Jennifer Packer, Pipilotti Rist, Henry Taylor, Tala Madani, Judy Baca, Annika Yi, Garrett Bradley, Cao Fei, and Simone Forti.

During the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States, Biesenbach pivoted the museum programs online to virtual MOCA where he conducted twenty-five studio visits with international artists that were distributed on the museum's website, social media, and YouTube.

In addition, he fundraised with artists' designed facemasks by Yoko Ono, Catherine Opie, Pipilotti Rist,Mark Grotjahn, Barbara Kruger, Hank Willis Thomas, Virgil Abloh, Alex Israel and sold them internationally in collaboration with the Warhol Foundation, the Qatar Museums and the K11 Hongkong.

As part of a 2021 reorganization, Biesenbach was later named artistic director, with a mandate to focus on setting the artistic vision for the museum, overseeing exhibitions and collections.

Shortly after, Johanna Burton was appointed as executive director.

In September 2021, Biesenbach was appointed as new director of both the Neue Nationalgalerie with Berggruen Museum and Scharf-Gerstenberg Collection and the future Museum of the 20th Century.

Biesenbach is the recipient of the following awards and honorary degrees:

In addition, Biesenbach received the International Association of Art Critics (AICA) award for the exhibitions Marina Abramović: The Artist Is Present, Pipilotti Rist: Pour Your Body Out (7354 Cubic Meters), and Fassbinder: Berlin Alexanderplatz.