ZURICH.- After no less than 20 successful years at the helm, Heike Munder, Head of the Migros Museum für Gegenwartskunst, has decided to take up new professional challenges. Her management style has shaped the Migros Museum to a large extent and has made the institution more attractive to both the local and national audiences and established the museum among international experts through its high-grade profile.

After 20 years as head of the Migros Museum für Gegenwartskunst, Heike Munder will be taking on new professional challenges from the end of June 2023. Under her management, the Museum für Gegenwartskunst has been able to develop and has generated considerable international interest with such projects as the retrospectives Art & Language, Heidi Bucher, Teresa Burga, Marc Camille Chaimowicz, Dorothy Iannone, Yoko Ono, Stephen Willats and large-scale productions such as those with Ragnar Kjartansson and Jimmie Durham. Under the leadership of Heike Munder, the Migros Museum für Gegenwartskunst has been instrumental in discovering early such talent as Cathy Wilkes, Cory Arcangel, Ian Cheng and Korakrit Arunanondchai, who are considered today to be key exponents of contemporary art. Projects involving African artists (The African Exile Museum), themed exhibitions on feminism (It’s Time For Action, Producing Futures) and the environment (Potential Worlds) have materially contributed to consolidating the Museum’s profile and expanding its institutional canon.

During this period, the collection at the Migros Museum für Gegenwartskunst expanded markedly with works by such key artists as Pyllida Barlow, Maria Eichhorn, Gustav Metzger, Pipilotti Rist, Christoph Schlingensief and Katharina Sieverding. At the same time, the collection branched out along creative new paths – but always in line with the principle that art history is a living process and repositioning is possible.

Hedy Graber, head of the Society and Culture Division in the Migros Group, acknowledged Heike Munder’s dedication: «Together with her team, she has made an outstanding contribution to raising the profile of the Migros Museum für Gegenwartskunst as an internationally recognised institution. Her success in this regard was due to independent exhibitions, powerful communication of art and projects that amply reflected the relationships between art and society, which today provides the Museum with a unique profile.» In addition to this, Hedy Graber emphasised that Heike Munder had advanced the expansion of the art collection extremely successfully to include a number of relevant works. «I would like to express my sincere thanks to Heike Munder for many years of outstanding commitment and wish her every success for her future career», enthused Hedy Graber.

The Migros Museum für Gegenwartskunst is scheduled to say goodbye to Heike Munder on 9 June 2023 officially and show the company's appreciation. In line with the succession arrangement, the organisation will, in the coming months, focus on a collective leadership structure that will open up new, visionary opportunities for the future.