Federal Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle has appointed Susanne Gaensheimer, Director of the MMK Museum für Moderne Kunst in Frankfurt am Main, as curator of the official German contribution for the 54th Biennale di Venezia in 2011. The appointment was made upon recommendation by the Federal Foreign Office Art and Exhibitions Committee, whose members include museum directors and art experts.

Federal Minister Westerwelle also took the opportunity to thank Nicolaus Schafhausen, curator of the German contributions for the 52nd and 53rd Biennale di Venezia, for his successful work.

The International Exhibition “Biennale di Venezia”, which takes place every two years, is one of the most important international forums for contemporary visual arts. The Federal Republic of Germany traditionally makes a national contribution commissioned and largely co-financed by the Federal Foreign Office. The German Pavilion will be realized in cooperation with the Institute for Foreign Cultural Relations (ifa).

Susanne Gaensheimer is an art historian who completed her doctoral dissertation on Bruce Nauman at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität in Munich after studying in Munich, Hamburg, and in the Independent Study Program at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York. She has been the Director of the MMK Museum für Moderne Kunst in Frankfurt am Main since 2009. Previously, she served as head of the international contemporary art collection and curator of the Städtische Galerie at the Lenbachhaus in Munich from 2002 to 2008.