Klaus Biesenbach
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Klaus Biesenbach Director of MoMA PS1, Chief Curator-at-Large of MoMA |
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| Born | 1967 (age 49–50) Kürten, West Germany |
| Occupation | Curator, director |
Klaus Biesenbach (born 1967) is the director of MoMA PS1 in Queens, New York City and chief curator at large at The Museum of Modern Art, New York City. He is also the founding director of Kunst-Werke (KW) Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin.
Biesenbach was born in 1967, Kürten, West Germany.
Biesenbach founded Kunst-Werke (KW) Institute for Contemporary Art in Berlin in 1991, as well as the Berlin Biennale in 1996, and remains Founding Director of both entities. Under his artistic and executive directorship, KW and the Berlin Biennale were started as self-inventive initiatives and are now federally and state funded institutions.
Biesenbach joined MoMA PS1 as a curator in 1996; the museum's director Alanna Heiss had hired him part-time while allowing him to maintain his directorship in Berlin. In 2004, Biesenbach was appointed as a curator in the MoMA's "Department of Film and Media". He was named Chief Curator of MoMA's newly formed Department of Media, in 2006, which was subsequently broadened to the Department of Media and Performance Art, in 2009, to reflect the Museum's increased focus on collecting, preserving, and exhibiting performance art. As Chief Curator of the department, Biesenbach led a range of pioneering initiatives, including the launch of a new performance art exhibition series; an ongoing series of workshops for artists and curators; acquisitions of media and performance art; and the Museum's presentation in 2010 of a major retrospective of the work of Marina Abramović—with whom he was formerly romantically involved.
In 2012, Biesenbach turned MoMA P.S. 1 into a temporary day shelter for displaced residents after Hurricane Sandy. He drafted an open letter to the then New York City Mayor, Michael R. Bloomberg and fellow New Yorkers that called for help in the Rockaways, signed by celebrities including Lady Gaga, Madonna, James Franco, Gwyneth Paltrow and Patti Smith.
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