LÜBECK.- Overbeck-Gesellschaft announced the appointment of art historian and independent curator Paula Kommoss as its new director. With Kommoss’ appointment, the institution is set to embrace a new direction. Emerging contemporary positions and site-specific content will shape its future program through a variety of artistic forms and thematic exhibitions.
Prof. Christian Klawitter, Chairman of the Board: “We received a high number of excellent applications. Paula Kommoss was chosen for her depth of knowledge and experience, her diverse national and international networks, and her commitment to and understanding of the pressing responsibilities of contemporary art’s institutions. We are confident that Paula Kommoss will guide our Kunstverein to new shores. We are very much looking forward to working together.”
Paula Kommoss: “I am excited to lead this new chapter for the Overbeck-Gesellschaft. Its unique pavilion—a notable example of Neues Bauen architecture—offers extraordinary opportunities, from the site-specificity of its garden environment to its permeable structure. The future program will invite contemporary artistic perspectives to address the most urgent issues of our time, and will provide space for many forms of expression. One leitmotif will be the use of music and sound. In addition, the public program will question the social role of institutions and invite dialogue.”
In February 2025, Paula Kommoss’ program will commence with the first institutional solo exhibition in Germany by Cypriot artist Maria Toumazou. The exhibition will open on Saturday, 15 February 2025, and be on view until 27 April 2025. In her works, Maria Toumazou explores the potentialities of found objects and pre-existing artistic positions, tracing histories of (re)use as well as their narrative contingencies. Through the relational choreography of site, object and image, Toumazou expands fixed understandings of identity, authenticity and collaboration. For her exhibition in Lübeck, Toumazou will restage found sculpture, objects and emblems, toying with perception and the enduring paradox of originality and repetition at its core.
Since its foundation in 1918, the Overbeck-Gesellschaft in Lübeck has been one of the most important Kunstverein in Germany. Key positions of classical modernism and contemporary art have been shown here, including Ernst-Wilhelm Nay, Anita Rée, Josef Albers, Hanne Darboven, Kiki Smith, Roni Horn, and Haegue Yang. Its exhibition building, designed by the architect Wilhelm Bräck in 1927 and situated in the garden of the Behnhaus Drägerhaus Museum, is a key example of Neues Bauen architecture. Since 1988, the Lübeck Society Gesellschaft zur Beförderung gemeinnütziger Zwecke, has awarded the Overbeck Prize for Fine Arts in cooperation with the Overbeck-Gesellschaft, most recently to Monica Bovincini, Yngve Holen and Anna Uddenberg. The Kunstverein has been awarding the Overbeck Prize for Fine Arts since 1988, most recently to Monica Bovincini, Yngve Holen and Anna Uddenberg. Twice a year, the invited artists realize exhibitions in both sites. The collaboration offers generous spatial opportunities in a central place of encounter in Lübeck. Paula Kommoss is also appointed to the church’s board of trustees as St. Petri’s art curator.
Paula Kommoss studied art history in Freiburg, as well as contemporary art history in Bochum and London. In her curatorial practice, Kommoss focuses on the inscription of feminist perspectives within the art historical canon, the activation of archives, and the complexity of urban infrastructures. Kommoss has worked at international contemporary art institutions such as the Drawing Room in London, the Fridericianum in Kassel, the German Pavilion at the 57th Venice Biennale, and the Städelschule in Frankfurt am Main.
She has curated numerous exhibitions in museums, Kunstvereine, and art institutions, accompanied by multi-layered public programs. In 2020, she founded the Frankfurt project space ELVIRA, in which she exhibited Claude Cahun, Isa Genzken, and Atíena R. Kilfa, among others. Most recently, she was Artistic Director of the Biennale für Freiburg 2 (2023). Entitled “Das Lied der Strasse,” the Biennale was dedicated to the visualization of historiographical blind spots in the Nazi era, the reappraisal of Afro-German history, and the potential of public space. The Biennale took place at 12 locations and brought together 55 artistic positions, including James Gregory Atkinson, Hito Steyerl, Finnegan Shannon, Shaun Motsi, R.E.P., and Matt Welch. Over the course of her directorship, Kommoss initiated the biennale’s institutional collaboration with CRAC Alsace.
As a writer, Kommoss’s texts have appeared in publications such as Open Archif, Emergent magazine and the weekly newspaper Der Freitag. She regularly teaches at art academies, most recently the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf and the Kunstakademie Nürnberg.
