Artistic Director of Biennale Für Freiburg 2

01.01.2022

PAULA KOMMOSS TO BE THE ARTISTIC DIRECTOR AND MANAGING DIRECTOR OF BIENNALE FÜR FREIBURG 2

The association Perspektiven für Kunst in Freiburg e.V. is pleased to introduce Paula Kommoss as the new Artistic Director and Managing Director of the Biennale für Freiburg 2.

“I am looking forward to the next two years – to working with artists and partners, the people of Freiburg, and Freiburg itself,” says the art historian and curator. Paula Kommoss will take up the position in January 2022, with the Biennale taking place in 2023. She succeeds Leon Hösl, who directed the first edition of the Biennale.

“Paula Kommoss is the ideal person for the artistic direction of the second Biennale. She is familiar with the city of Freiburg and has solid experience in the art world on a national and international level. Her program will give an important impulse to contemporary art and the cultural life of Freiburg and will continue the success of the first edition curated by Leon Hösl,” says the board of Perspektiven für Kunst in Freiburg e.V. consisting of Heinrich Dietz (Director, Kunstverein Freiburg), Julia Galandi-Pascual (Director, PEAC Museum, Freiburg), Yvonne Ziegler (Art Historian), Ben Hübsch (Artist and Professor, Hochschule Macromedia). Together with external advisors Maurin Dietrich (Director, Kunstverein München) and Hanne König (Academic Assistant Exhibition Design and Scenography, HfG Karlsruhe), the Board unanimously appointed Paula Kommoss as Artistic Director.

Born in 1989, the art historian and curator has been working at the Städelschule in Frankfurt am Main since 2018. Alongside this work, Paula Kommoss has curated numerous exhibitions, and in 2021 founded the Frankfurt exhibition space ELVIRA. There she realized a successive, thematic exhibition program that brought together works by Claude Cahun, Isa Genzken, Judith Hopf, Atíena R. Kilfa, Shaun Motsi, Georgia Sagri, and Matt Welch, among others.

Paula Kommoss studied Art History and American Studies at the Albert Ludwigs University in Freiburg, at University College London, and at the Ruhr University Bochum. She was curatorial assistant at the Fridericianum in Kassel in 2016 and at the German Pavilion of the 57th Venice Biennale, which won the Golden Lion with Anne Imhof’s Faust (2017). During her time at the Städelschule, Paula Kommoss has been responsible for the coordination of the public program and worked most recently as research associate and in management.

Publications include the co-edited Städelschule Lectures 2 (2021) with contributions by Claire Denis, Lynn Hershman Leeson, and Cauleen Smith, as well as Städelschule Lectures 1 (2019) with contributions by Lucy Raven, Martha Rosler, and Amy Sillman among others.