Joanna Warsza will be the new City Curator in Hamburg
With the internationally renowned curator, the Ministry of Culture and Media Hamburg and the Kunsthaus Hamburg are carrying forward the project on Art in Public Space.
Joanna Warsza has been appointed as Hamburg’s new City Curator (Stadtkuratorin) from October 2024. Born in Warsaw in 1976, she will foster the development of art in public spaces in Hamburg over the next five years and initiate discussions on urban and social issues with artistic projects. Joanna Warsza’s curatorial activities include the recently opened art parcours at the Gropius Bau “Radical Playgrounds: From Competition to Collaboration,” the Polish pavilion at the 59th Venice Biennale, the Georgian pavilion at the 55th edition, and the 7th Berlin Biennale. She was also programme director of CuratorLab at the Konstfack University of Arts in Stockholm and artistic director of Public Art Munich 2018. Joanna Warsza will be Hamburg’s third City Curator. The Ministry of Culture and Media in collaboration with the Kunsthaus Hamburg have relaunched the project this year, setting it up for a five-year term with the aim of consolidating the programme in the long term.
Dr. Carsten Brosda, Senator for Culture and Media Hamburg: “Joanna Warsza is ideally qualified for giving new impetus to art in the public realm in Hamburg. In addition to her profound understanding of contemporary art and extensive international experience, her work reflects a keen interest in the political and social functions of art outside conventional gallery spaces. Her commitment to innovative and inclusive art projects along with her excellent network are bound to enrich the cultural city of Hamburg and, through artistic means, open up new perspectives on the issues that affect us as a society.”
Anna Nowak, Managing and Artistic Director of Kunsthaus Hamburg: “We immensely look forward to working with Joanna Warsza. Our institution will provide her with the best possible support in her new role as City Curator and will assist her to establish ties with local cultural players and initiatives.”
Joanna Warsza: “It is in the public space that we come together as strangers with and despite our differences. I see art, and especially public art, as a metaphorical and complex language in this process. Especially in the current tense political times, it can find ways to overcome isolation and divides. I am thrilled to become a city curator of Hamburg and lead this unique institution without the walls, together with the artists, citizens, and the colleagues of Kunsthaus Hamburg, on a journey from the cosmos to the commons.”
Joanna Warsza was chosen by a jury made up of Ulf Aminde (artist and professor at the Kunsthochschule Berlin-Weißensee), Ulrich Genth (artist and member of the Kunstkommission in Hamburg), Julia Jung (art in public space manager at the Hamburg Ministry of Culture and Media), Gilly Karjevsky (visiting professor for social design, University of Fine Arts, Hamburg), Brigitte Kölle (curator at the Hamburger Kunsthalle and member of the Kunstkommission in Hamburg), Anna Nowak (managing and artistic director of Kunsthaus Hamburg), and Misal Adnan Yildiz (co-director of Staatliche Kunsthalle Baden-Baden).
As City Curator, Joanna Warsza is succeeding Sophie Goltz, who had sparked a lively debate on the topicality and relevance of art in the public realm from 2013 to 2016, and Dirck Möllmann, who continued this discussion with long-term impulses from 2016 to 2019. The City Curator project marks yet another important step in the long history of public art in Hamburg. In 1981, the Hanseatic city replaced the Art in Architecture programme in place until then with the Art in Public Space programme. This was Hamburg’s response to cultural and social change and the related shift in the demands placed on the city as a space for living and interaction. By opening up the urban space to independent visual arts projects, a significant step toward a democratic shaping of urban culture was achieved.
The programme’s experimental and progressive focus has thus set decisive new standards and will continue along this line. Based on numerous temporary or permanent artworks and projects alongside curated exhibitions, topics of social relevance have been addressed and introduced into public debates. The aim of the Hamburg’s City Curator programme is to draw even more attention to Hamburg’s public art and to further increase its impact on urban society.
