Jürgen Harten

The Kunsthalle Legend: The Kunsthalle Düsseldorf and its exhibition policy with regard to the quest for avantgardism and the promotion of contemporary art in the second half of the twentieth century

30 January 2014, 6–7.30pm
Johnson Foundation Auditorium
John Lennon Art and Design Building
Liverpool John Moores University
Free – all welcome

Jürgen Harten (12.28–12.33 o’clock, 18.10.2008) © courtesy Michael Weseley

For the fifth and final Keynote Lecture in the ‘Kunsthalle Effect’ series, the ERC is honoured to welcome Jürgen Harten, one of the most influential curators of the twentieth century, to discuss some of the numerous exhibitions he organised first as Deputy Director, then as Director of the famed Kunsthalle Düsseldorf from the late 1960s to the late 1990s.

Jürgen Harten is a German art historian and curator based in Berlin. After studying pedagogy, anthropology and art history, he was Secretary for Arnold Bode’s Documenta 4 in Kassel in 1967. From 1969 to 1972, Harten was Scientific Assistant and Deputy Director of the Kunsthalle Düsseldorf, becoming its Director in 1972 until 1998. At Kunsthalle Düsseldorf, Harten curated a large number of exhibitions that have since secured their place in the annals of exhibition making, including Marcel Broodthaers’ ‘The Eagle from the Oligocene to the Present’ (1972), the ‘Between’ exhibitions series (1969–73) and ‘The Museum of Money’ (1978), to name only a few. From 1998 to 2000, Harten was Founding Director of the Museum Kunst Palast in Dusseldorf.