#68 PETER GORSCHLÜTER | Museum Folkwang, Essen | Director

Voices On Art - The VAN HORN Gallery Podcast | hosted by Daniela Steinfeld

Peter Gorschlüter, director of Museum Folkwang in Essen since 2018, is one of the youngest museum directors in Germany. Peter talks his early, formative years, growing up in a household with an affinity for culture. He talks his almost becoming a gallerist and how unexpectedly then the course was set to pursue a career as curator - and later director - of art institutions. He talks in depth about his working in different international art institutions through the years with a focus on developing an approach for Museum Folkwang that honors the history of the museum, as well as opens up new ways in corresponding with the time and the needs of the people. The demuseumization of the museum is an essential question for him and he would like to transfer the Folkwang (= hall of the people) vision of the museum founder Karl Ernst Osthaus into our times, thinking across genres and and epochs. Therefore he considers participation, transparency and putting people in the center of attention to be very important tasks. He sees himself not only as museum manager, but also as someone who intitiates content impulses.

Peter studied Theater, Film and Television Studies, also German Studies and Philosophy in Cologne. He started organizing exhibitions early on, worked at a gallery for contemporary art and then was invited to the post of curator and research assistant at the Kunsthalle Düsseldorf. He spent some important years being chief curator of Tate Liverpool where he headed the Collection and Exhibitions Department. In 2010 he was co-curator of the Liverpool Biennial. After that he was appointed as deputy director of the Museum für Moderne Kunst MMK in Frankfurt a.M. from 2010 to 2018. Since 2018 he works as director of the internationally acclaimed Museum Folkwang in Essen. In 2021 Peter was awarded an honorary professorship for "Art and the Public" at the Folkwang University of the Arts.

35 min., recorded Sep. 19, 2022, language english.

Photo credit: Peter Gorschlüter, Direktor Museum Folkwang, Foto: Tanja Lamers ( BILD IM AUSSTELLUNGSKONTEXT)

Shownotes (mostly german):

https://www.museum-folkwang.de/en

https://www.deutschlandfunkkultur.de/peter-gorschlueter-neuer-chef-des-folkwang-ein-museum-fuer-100.html

https://polis-magazin.com/2022/08/prof-peter-gorschlueter-besser-in-essen/

https://www1.wdr.de/mediathek/audio/wdr3/wdr3-mosaik/audio--jahre-folkwang---musemsdirektor-ueber-jubilaeumsausstellung-100.html

https://soundcloud.com/sparkasse-essen/zuhause-in-essen-8-peter-gorschluter

https://vanhornshowroom.com/viewingroom/podcast/

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