Curriculum

1961 Born on August 16th in Munich

1967-72 Attendance of the Rudolf Steiner School in Munich

1972-76 Attended the Dr. Florian Überreiter High School in Munich

1976-1979 Attended Rudolf Steiner School in Munich, graduated with the production and role of the theater director in Luigi Pirandello’s Six Persons Seeking an Author.

1980 Graduated from the neusprachliches Oskar von Miller Gymnasium in Munich.

1981-82 Recognition as conscientious objector. Auxiliary work at the Bavaria Film Studios. Started studying theater at the University of Munich (LMU). Freelance stage design and painting.

1982-87 Studies of art history, philosophy and Byzantine studies at the University of Munich (LMU). Graduation with Magister Artium under Uwe M. Schneede and Hans Belting. Travels to Mexico and begins research on the Austrian surrealist Wolfgang Paalen (Vienna 1905 – 1959 Taxco), visiting surviving friends and relatives and cataloging Paalen’s Mexican pictorial holdings. At the same time, first attempts at painting. Examination of the work of Frank Auerbach, Eugène Leroy and Leon Kossoff.

1988-90 18-month stay in Paris and continuation of research on Paalen. Oral-History-Project in collaboration with the Sorbonne and the Bibliothèque Douzet on survivors of Surrealism in Paris (conversations with, among others, Jean Hélion, Stanley William Hayter, Bona Pieyre de Mandiargues, Elisa Breton, Geo Dupin, Alice Rahon, Eva Sulzer and others). Start of building an archive about Paalen. Beginning of free journalistic activity. Alongside free exhibition projects  of contemporary art at the Chateau La Boissière in Finistère and for the for the Nathalie Karg Gallery in New York. Collaboration on the exhibition In the beginning was the picture, Museum Villa Stuck, Munich.

1990-92 Postgraduate course for museum and exhibition curators in the art business at the Wissenschaftliche Landesakademie in Vienna/Krems, organized by Dieter Bogner, Institute for Cultural Studies, Vienna (diploma). Parallel start of the doctoral studies in art history with Gerhard Schmidt in Vienna (until 1992) and work on the archiving and cataloging of the Otto van de Loo collection in Munich. Preparation of the Otto van de Loo Foundation to the National Gallery in Berlin. Beginning of discussions about a Paalen retrospective with the Museum Modern Art, Vienna. Work on the publication Engagement und Distanz, an anthology of texts on painting, Edition van de Loo, Munich 1992, with extensive essays on Pierre Alechinsky, Karel Appel, Günter Brus, Miriam Cahn, Constant, Jean Dubuffet, Asger Jorn, Henri Michaux, Max Neumann, Arnulf Rainer, Antonio Saura, Emil Schumacher, Antoni Tapiés, Wols, and many others. Second trip to Mexico and visit of the English Surrealist Gordon Onslow Ford in Inverness, California. Discovery of the early discovery at Onslow Ford’s of Paalen’s early work, which was thought to be lost. Marriage with Monica Regini in Rome.

1993 Birth of son Lion-Valerio. Curator of the Wolfgang Paalen Retrospective at the Museum Moderner Kunst, Vienna (together with. Dieter Schrage), supervisor of the extensive catalog and author of the contributions on Paalen’s artistic career and background in the history of ideas. Organization of the exhibition Gordon Onslow Ford, paintings, in Munich (pavilion of the old Botanical Garden) and Bochum (Museum of Art). Editor of the Catalog book with texts by Roberto Matta, Wieland Schmied and others.

1994 co-curator of the Paalen retrospective at the Museo de Arte Contemporanéo Carmen y Carillo Gil, Mexico City. Regular guest curator at the MACG, Mexico, as well as regular participation in the Congress of Aesthetics of the Instituto de Investigaciones Esteticas of the UNAM, Mexico. Resumption of doctoral studies in the interdisciplinary Institute for the Fundamental Studies in Art Science Art Science, Aesthetics and Art Education in Witten/Herdecke.

1995 Six-month stay in Rome as a guest of the Villa Medici, Rome for the preparation of the exhibition Recuerdo del Paraiso eternal, André Breton on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of Breton’s birth at the MACG, Mexico-City, commissioned by the Institut de l’Amerique Latin and the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Author of a video documentary and a catalog book on André Breton in exile. Preparation and supervision of the exhibition in Mexico City (MACG). The exhibition subsequently travels to San Miguel Allende.

1996 Transfer of residence from Munich to Milan/Italy. Initiator of an official exchange program of contemporary art between Italy and Mexico, which begins with the exhibition of the Sicilian artist Paola Lo Sciuto at the MACG. was organized. Supervision of the exhibition and catalog.

1997 Doctorate in Art History, at the Free University of Witten Herdecke with Michael Bockemühl, overall predicate cum laude. Lecture on Jewish iconoclasm and eschatology in the context of Paalen’s in connection with Paalen’s Mexican period 1940-49 at the XXI.Colloquium La aboliciòn del arte of the Institute of Aesthetics of the UNAM, in Oaxcaca, Mexico.

1998-2002 Academic discourse on the theme of deconstructivism in architecture in architecture in Witten/Herdecke. Lecture on Aby Warburg’s Mnemosyne Project in the light of contemporary art at the XXII.colloquium (In)disciplinas of the Institute of Aesthetics of the UNAM, in Querétaro, Mexico. Publication Wolfgang Paalen, Inside the Inside the Whale, monograph, writings, oeuvre catalog, Vienna/New York (Springer). Collaboration on the exhibition about the student revolt and the artistic climate around 1968 in Mexico in the the art gallery of the UNAM. Consulting in the field of private and Corporate Collecting as an employee of Bigli Art Broker Milano. Organization of a small Paalen exhibition in the gallery Döbele, Dresden (with catalog).

2002 Return to Germany. Lives and works in Berlin and Bork/Brandenburg as  a freelance author and curator.