Barbara Clausen Picked to Lead StÄdelschule, Portikus

Austrian-born curator and art historian Barbara Clausen has been named rector of Frankfurt’sStädelschuleAcademy of Fine Arts and director of its gallery,Portikus. Her five-year contract begins October 1. Clausen, who specializes in performance art, fills the rolesvacatedearlier this year by Yasmil Raymond, who was the first woman to hold them. She arrives from the Institute of Art History at Goethe-Universität, Frankfurt, where she has been a visiting professor since 2023.

“We would like to express our collective excitement that Barbara Clausen will take up the tenure of rector this autumn,” said Professor Gerard Byrne, speaking on behalf of the Städelschule in a statement. “Clausen has an internationally recognized profile as an art historian of the highest caliber, as well as an exciting body of curatorial work engaging contemporary art practices through the prism of previous artistic legacies. [She] has a track record of working closely with students and with institution building. Her professional interests and her wide international experience make her an ideal candidate to lead the Städelschule into the future.”

Clausen between 2018 and 2022 served as director of the research project Keeping It Live and from 2014 to 2019 oversaw the research project An Annotated Bibliography in Real Time: Performance Art in Quebec and Canada. Among the exhibitions she has curated and programming she has organized are “Stage Set Stage,” a series of performances, screenings, talks, and workshops at SBC Galerie d’Art Contemporain, Montreal (2014); “Push and Pull. Part I and Part II” (2010–11), a series of collaborations between Vienna’s Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig Wien and Tanzquartier Wien and London’s Tate Modern; and “Wieder und Wider: Performance Appropriated” (2006) and “After the Act: The (Re)Presentation of Performance Art” (2005), both at MUMOK. She holds a Ph.D. from the University of Vienna, Austria.