KW Institute Extends Contract of Director Krist Gruijthuijsen

Krist Gruijthuijsen will continue to serve as artistic director of the KW Institute for Contemporary Art in Berlin. Gruijthuijsen has helmed the institution since July 2016. Under his leadership, the curatorial team staged exhibitions and projects featuring emerging, overlooked, and non-Western voices, including Anna Daučíková, Beatriz González, Hiwa K, and Hassan Sharif, and KW experienced a 40 percent increase in visitors. He also helped boost its institutional budget by 40 percent and oversaw the refurbishment work of KW’s historic building.

After the board unanimously decided to extend Gruijthuijsen’s contract until 2024, board chair Olafur Eliasson praised Gruijthuijsen’s tenure. “Krist’s engagement and programing over the past four years has culminated in not only sharp investigations into various urgent subject matters, but also an investment in local, national, and international contexts. The positive increase in visitor numbers, as well as professional institutional collaborations that have seen the production of unprecedented exhibitions which have traveled internationally, are just two indicators of his success both locally and beyond Berlin. We are very much looking forward to seeing how his program unfolds in the coming years.”

KW will reopen, after a temporary closure because of the Covid-19 pandemic, on May 30 with exhibitions dedicated to the work of Sharif and Jasmina Metwaly and Yazan Khalili. On its website, the institution wrote that “comprehensive hygiene measures and precautions will be taken to protect visitors and staff in accordance with the applicable standards of the State of Berlin.” It is also planning a series of programs, including the release of the first publication based on its history, throughout 2021 to celebrate its thirtieth anniversary.