Antje Weitzel appointed artistic and managing director

The Künstlerhaus Bethanien is delighted to announce the appointment of Antje Weitzel as its new artistic and managing director. The selection committee voted unanimously in favor of Antje Weitzel’s appointment on June 25, 2024. She will assume the leadership of the acclaimed International Studio Programme in Berlin-Kreuzberg on October 1, 2024.

Antje Weitzel studied visual communication at the Kunsthochschule Kassel and art history and Romance languages and literature at the University of Kassel. She is also a graduate of the UdK’s Institute for Art in Context in Berlin. Since 2014, she has been the project manager for the Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art, where she has worked closely with internationally renowned curators including Zasha Colah, Kader Attia, and Gabi Ngcobo. With over 20 years of experience in the fields of art and culture, including her long-standing role running and curating the project space uqbar in Berlin-Wedding and numerous exhibition projects at Berlin art institutions such as Kunstraum Kreuzberg, Galerie im Körnerpark, Maxim Gorki Theater, nGbK, and the Akademie der Künste, Antje Weitzel possesses a profound understanding for both the challenges and opportunities of the cultural sector within an ever-evolving social landscape.

“As a cultural manager and curator with an expansive international network, Antje Weitzel champions a practice that has an international outlook while also maintaining its roots at the local level. She has a talent for nurturing artists, initiating discourse, and building bridges between different cultural contexts. Her expertise makes her extremely well equipped to steer the Künstlerhaus Bethanien along a progressive, pioneering path,” say Silvia Fehrmann, director of the DAAD Artists-in-Berlin Program, and Maximilian Müllner, administrative director of the Akademie der Künste, speaking on behalf of the Künstlerhaus Bethanien GmbH’s shareholders.

Antje Weitzel is looking forward to her new role: “The Künstlerhaus Bethanien embodies its mission in its very name: it is a house for artists. I would like to actively make use of this unique profile among Berlin’s art institutions to revive its traditions and realign the programmatic focus with the city’s transdisciplinary art production, while addressing the major societal challenges of our time. These include issues of accessibility, relationships with and inclusion of diverse groups, social justice, environmental responsibility, and the value of artistic processes. The Künstlerhaus Bethanien of the future will be a vibrant space of encounter, exchange, production, and presentation, consistently fostering the most contemporary art practices, while making space for the social and political demands that nurture such practices.”

Antje Weitzel succeeds Christoph Tannert, who has played a decisive role in shaping the Künstlerhaus in his capacity as director since 2000. The Künstlerhaus Bethanien’s shareholders would like to thank Christoph Tannert for his dedicated and successful endeavors, which have helped transform the institution into a world-renowned artist-in-residence program.

The Künstlerhaus Bethanien was established in 1974 under the direction of Dr. Michael Haerdter in the former Bethanien deaconess hospital at Mariannenplatz. In 2010, the center was relocated to the Lichtfabrik building on Kottbusser Strasse under the direction of Christoph Tannert. Since its inception, the International Studio Programme has hosted more than 1,000 artists from around the world and staged exhibitions with works by more than 2,500 artists.

The open application process for the position of artistic director was organized by the Akademie der Künste, with Antje Weitzel ultimately selected from a large number of applicants. The selection committee consisted of the Künstlerhaus Bethanien GmbH’s shareholders Silvia Fehrmann (director of the DAAD Artists-in-Berlin Program) and Maximilian Müllner (administrative director of the Akademie der Künste in Berlin), who were joined by Johanna M. Keller (program officer of the Akademie der Künste in Berlin) and Franciska Zólyom (director and curator of the Galerie für Zeitgenössische Kunst Leipzig). In an advisory capacity, Christine Feuerhake, representing the Berlin Senate Department for Culture and Social Cohesion, along with Andrea Boche (administrative director) and Christoph Tannert (artistic director) of the Künstlerhaus Bethanien, participated in the selection process.