Swedish Daniel Birnbaum to curate 2009 Venice Biennale

Venice Biennale Appoints Daniel Birnbaum to Curate 2009 Show

By Catherine Hickley

April 8 (Bloomberg) -- The Venice Biennale appointed Daniel Birnbaum, the rector of the Staedelschule international art academy in Frankfurt, to curate its 2009 show.

Birnbaum, born in Stockholm in 1963, was responsible for the Moscow biennial as well as exhibitions at the Pompidou Center in Paris and at London's Serpentine Gallery. He is a contributing editor to Artforum magazine in New York and writes critical essays for catalogs.

``The Venice Biennale has found a curator for the 53rd exhibition able to bring to bear original criteria for selection, geared to the artist's point of view,'' Paolo Baratta, the president of the Biennale, said in a statement dated April 7 on the exhibition's Web site.

The last Venice Biennale, which opened in June 2007, was curated by Robert Storr.

The Biennale statement quoted Birnbaum saying he will seek to ``steer clear of the hierarchies dictated by commercial interests and fashion.''

To contact the reporter on this story: Catherine Hickley in Berlin at chickley@bloomberg.net.
Last Updated: April 8, 2008 05:14 EDT