Fatima Hellberg new Director of Vienna’s Mumok

“In Fatima Hellberg, we have gained an internationally well-connected, incredibly accomplished and creative leader for mumok. She has an open, lively, young and modern institution in mind, one that while located in Vienna, is also boasting a wealth of international perspectives,” said State Secretary Mayer about Hellberg’s appointment. “Ms Hellberg has presented an outstanding concept with very clever approaches and a lot of esprit. She represents a new departure, a new and different way of thinking about museums, cooperation and diversity, but also a keen sense of history and the strength of the mumok collection”.

Fatima Hellberg (b. 1986, Sweden) is a curator and director of Bonner Kunstverein.
She has curated exhibitions and projects in institutions internationally, including: Tate Modern; Institute of Contemporary Arts, London; CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts, San Francisco; Malmö Konsthall and Museion, Bolzano. Her curatorial practice is formulated in close dialogue with artists, often with long-running collaborations and a marked attention to the experiential qualities of the viewer and exhibition-making as form. A key concern is a holistic approach to the institution, where programme, communication, outreach, and internal structures are approached in connection and synergy. The notion of a Haltung, which connects a practice of participation, inclusion and sustainability – understood in how one works together and the ethics of the institution – are key.

Prior to her current role, Hellberg was Artistic Director of Künstlerhaus Stuttgart (2015- 19). In London, she served as curator at Cubitt, and Electra, a contemporary arts organisation with a longstanding dedication to gender and feminism.

Hellberg studied Visual Culture and History of Art at Oxford University and Curating Contemporary Art at Royal College of Art, London. She has taught and lectured at Sandberg Institute, Amsterdam; Städelschule, Frankfurt; Oxford University and the Art Academy of Düsseldorf, Akademie der bildenden Künste Wien, among others. Hellberg has edited and written for numerous catalogues and contributed to journals including Texte zur Kunst, Frieze Magazine, Kunstkritikk, Afterall and Kunstforum. Selected edited publications include: Ellen Cantor: A history of the world as it has become known to me; Divine Drudgery and David Medalla: Parables of Friendship with the forthcoming title, Gregg Bordowitz: A Route, a Direction, an Inclination.

Main Image :BMKÖS/HBF/Lechner