BREMEN.- With effect from 1 January 2019, Regina Barunke will take over as curatorial manager at GAK Gesellschaft für Aktuelle Kunst in Bremen.

She succeeds Janneke de Vries, who, after ten years of successful curatorial work at GAK, will become Director of Weserburg | Museum für moderne Kunst.

“In Regina Barunke we have found a Director who has gained a name for herself with a highly inventive, discussion-oriented programme.

She will be able to foster GAK’s position as a renowned institution for exhibitions of contemporary art while at the same time providing entirely new impulses,“ says David Bartusch, Chairman of the Board of GAK.

Supported by a commission composed of Bettina Steinbrügge (Director of Hamburger Kunstverein), Kathleen Rahn (Director of Kunstverein Hannover) and Achim Bitter, an artist from Bremen and member of the GAK, the GAK Board (David Bartusch, Marion Bertram, Daniel de Olano, Joachim Kreibohm, Michael Schaefers) chose Regina Barunke at the recommendation of the commission after thorough consultation and discussion.

Regina Barunke ( born 1974) studied art history and English philology in Cologne and London. During her studies, she worked for numerous art associations and galleries.

She continued this work as an assistant at various institutions. She knows the contemporary art scene from different perspectives – not least thanks to her work for Stiftung Kunstfonds, where she was responsible for comprehensive assignments in the archive for artists’ estates, or as project coordinator of European Kunsthalle in Cologne.

She also has extensive educational experience. For many years, she has served as assistant lecturer at the Institute of Art History and the Institute for Art and Art Theory of Cologne University in connection with the Temporary Gallery.

Since 2012, she has been Artistic Director, Curator and Managing Director of Temporary Gallery – Zentrum für zeitgenössische Kunst e.V. in Cologne.

She has been responsible for building up the art institution by organising exhibitions on the likes of Ana Jotta; Olivier Foulon; experimental filmmaker, mystic and ethnomusicologist Harry Everett Smith and Jean-Marie Straub/Danièle Huillet with Peter Weiss.

In 2018, Regina Barunke and her team won the ADKV-ART COLOGNE Award for Kunstvereine, which is awarded by the Arbeitsgemeinschaft Deutscher Kunstvereine, in recognition of their work.

It was above all this work and the very unique and exceptionally discursive programme of the Temporary Gallery as well as the passion for contemporary art she expressed in the personal interviews which convinced the Board and the commission.

Regina Barunke:“I want to make a new statement for the GAK and Bremen as regards the presentation, contextualisation and communication of contemporary art. I believe that my responsibilities and my work as Managing Director of the Gesellschaft für Aktuelle Kunst – a place whose programme and profile I have admired for many years – are all about further developing and sharpening the image of the GAK as an institution. In curatorial terms, I will place the focus on well-researched, sometimes interdisciplinary, practice-oriented and theoretical topics of contemporary art. I am very much looking forward to managing GAK starting 2019.”