WOLFSBURG.- Dr. Markus Brüderlin, the Director of the Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, died suddenly and unexpectedly at his home in Frankfurt am Main on 16 March 2014, aged 55.

The staff, Board and Friends of the Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg are deeply saddened by the death of Markus Brüderlin, who had been the Director of the museum since 2006. Henning Schaper, the Managing Director of the Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, will assume the duties of the Director on an interim basis.

Prof. Dr. Markus Brüderlin was born in Basle in 1958. He studied History of Art, Art Pedagogy, Philosophy and German Studies in Vienna and Wuppertal, gaining his PhD with a dissertation on “The Significance of the Ornament for 20th-Century Abstract Art”. During this time he also worked as a freelance writer and exhibition curator. From 1994 to 1996 he was Curator of the Austrian State Ministry of Science, Research and Art. He founded and directed the Kunstraum Wien art space, and also founded the art magazine Springer. From 1996 to 2005 he held the post of Chief Curator at the Fondation Beyeler in Riehen near Basle. Markus Brüderlin was appointed Director of the Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg in 2006. Among the many exhibitions he conceived and curated in this position were Ornament and Abstraction (2001), ArchiSculpture (2004/06), Japan and the West: The Filled Void (2007), James Turrell. The Wolfsburg Project (2009), Rudolf Steiner and Contemporary Art (2010), Alberto Giacometti. The Origin of Space (2010), The Art of Deceleration (2011) and Art & Textiles (2013/2014). Markus Brüderlin was made an honorary professor at Braunschweig University of Art in May 2008.