New artistic team

Under the new directorship of Krist Gruijthuijsen, KW Institute for Contemporary Art in Berlin is delighted to announce the new artistic team as part of its restructuring. In expanding the artistic side of the team KW wants to underline its ambition for the future by committing to a large number of projects and exhibitions happening in and around the premises of KW, within the city of Berlin, and internationally.

The new artistic team will consist of Anna Gritz as curator, Leaver-Yap and Tirdad Zolghadr as associate curators, Maurin Dietrich and Cathrin Mayer as assistant curators/project managers, and Marc Hollenstein as graphic designer.

Anna Gritz previously worked as a curator at the South London Gallery and the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London, where she programmed performance, films, and exhibitions and commissioned new works by artists including Juliette Blightman, Bonnie Camplin, Kapwani Kiwanga, Lis Rhodes, Michael Smith, and Cally Spooner, as well as the group exhibitions Last Seen Entering the Biltmore (South London Gallery, 2014), and independently, duh? Art &Stupidity (co-curated with Paul Clinton, Focal Point Gallery, Southend-on-Sea, UK, 2015). Gritz contributes to publications, exhibition catalogues, and books. She was the curatorial attaché for the 20th Biennale of Sydney.

 Leaver-Yap works closely with artists to produce publications, exhibitions, and events. Recent projects include work with Uri Aran, Pauline Boudry/Renate Lorenz, Andrea Büttner, Hanne Darboven, Park McArthur, Lucy McKenzie, Charlotte Prodger, James Richards, and Leslie Thornton. Leaver-Yap is the Bentson Moving Image Scholar at the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, US, engaging artists whose work the Walker Art Center may choose to commission, exhibit, and purchase. Until recently  Leaver-Yap was the director of LUX Scotland, a dedicated support and promotion agency for artists working with the moving image in Scotland.

Tirdad Zolghadr’s curatorial work includes a number of discrete durational projects and several biennial settings. Traction, a curatorial polemic, will be published by Sternberg Press in August 2016, and the working title of his third novel is Headbanger. Zolghadr teaches at the Dutch Art Institute in Arnhem, Netherlands, among other institutions. 

Besides working as a project assistant for schir – art concepts, a residency located in Tel Aviv, Israel, Maurin Dietrich has also worked as curatorial assistant in KW’s artistic office on group and solo exhibitions, publications, and on her own projects, such as SALON OF HYBRID THINGS (together with Nina Mende, 2015). She is currently working on the Young Curators Workshop "Post-Contemporary Art" within the 9th Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art.

Cathrin Mayer has worked for several cultural institutions and galleries in Vienna, such as Kerstin Engholm Gallery and 21er Haus – Museum of Contemporary Art, alongside her activities as a freelance curator. She joined the team of the 9th Berlin Biennale, working as a curatorial assistant for the collective DIS, composed of Lauren Boyle, Solomon Chase, Marco Roso, and David Toro.

Marc Hollenstein works with various institutions and cultural practitioners. Ongoing projects include the identity for the Grazer Kunstverein, Graz, Austria, and Kunstverein, Amsterdam. In recent years he has designed many publications, including Mierle Laderman Ukeles: Seven Work Ballets (2015), Doug Ashford: Writings and Conversations (2013), Josef Bauer—Works 1965–Today (2015), and Oceans of Love: The Uncontainable Gregory Battcock (2016). He teaches graphic design at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie in Amsterdam.

The cultural programs of KW Institute for Contemporary Art are made possible with the support of the Governing Mayor of Berlin – Senate Chancellery – Cultural Affairs.