The ifa – Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen, as commissioner for the German Pavilion at the Venice Art Biennale 2026, has appointed Kathleen Reinhardt, Director of the Georg Kolbe Museum, as curator. A selection committee unanimously chose her as curator for next year’s German Pavilion from among invited experts from art practice and theory.
Image above: Kathleen Reinhardt in the garden of the Georg Kolbe Museum, 2025 I Kathleen Reinhardt in the garden of the Georg Kolbe Museum, 2025. photo: Diana Pfammatter.
The Biennale Arte di Venezia is one of the most important international exhibitions of contemporary art. As commissioner, the ifa is responsible for the realisation of the German contribution, which it has been coordinating and realising since 1971. For this year’s nomination of the curatorial position, the ifa commissioned a selection committee to make the decision in a two-stage selection process.
The selection committee justified its decision in favour of Kathleen Reinhardt as follows: “Kathleen Reinhardt has deeply impressed us in her curatorial work. With her ability to illuminate the pressing issues of our time in a multi-layered way and from different perspectives, she succeeds in inspiring us. She knows how to translate complex themes into an aesthetically sophisticated yet clear visual language. In doing so, she makes relevant themes in contemporary art accessible to a broad and international public and encourages viewers to engage in a profound dialogue about current social challenges.”
Kathleen Reinhardt on her appointment as curator of the German Pavilion 2026: “I would like to thank the selection committee, the ifa and the Federal Foreign Office for the trust they have placed in me and look forward to tackling this important project together. In our highly challenging times, art offers much-needed space for creative visions, for encounters, for social negotiation and for joint critical reflection.
In their works, artists ask where we are, how we got here and, above all, where we are going and what this might look and feel like. The German Pavilion’s traditional critical examination of history and society is certainly an ideal starting point for asking these questions right now.”
Gitte Zschoch, Secretary General of ifa – Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen: “We are extremely pleased that Kathleen Reinhardt, whose visionary and interdisciplinary approach enriches the international art scene, has been selected as curator for the German Pavilion. Through her curatorial work, Kathleen Reinhardt manages to promote a profound dialogue between different perspectives and thus use art as a unifying element. We are convinced that her contribution to the Biennale will have a significant impact on the global art landscape.”
About Kathleen Reinhardt
Dr Kathleen Reinhardt has been Director of the Georg Kolbe Museum in Berlin since December 2022, where she opened her institutional programme with exhibitions on Lin May Saeed, Noa Eshkol and Gisèle Vienne. From 2016 to 2022, she was curator and curator of contemporary art at the Albertinum of the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden.
She initiated important collection acquisitions, curated monographic exhibitions with Marlene Dumas (Skulls 2017), Slavs and Tatars (Made in Dschermany 2018) and worked with artists such as Ruth Wolf-Rehfeldt, David Horvitz, Céline Condorelli, Kapwani Kiwanga, Judy Radul, Mario Pfeifer, Emeka Ogboh and Hassan Khan. In 2020/21, she curated the highly acclaimed group exhibition 1 Million Roses for Angela Davis and initiated the research and exhibition project Revolutionary Romances? Transcultural Art Histories in the GDR (2019-2024).
She previously managed the studios of Berlin artists Candice Breitz and Petrit Halilaj. Previous positions include documenta 12, the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice and the Goethe-Institut Palermo. Kathleen Reinhardt writes for catalogues and specialist journals and teaches on art history, curatorial practice and art-making in post-socialist spaces at universities and art academies worldwide.
She was born in Sondershausen, studied Literature and Cultural Studies and International Management at the Universities of Bayreuth, Amsterdam and Los Angeles, was a Fulbright Scholar at the University of California, Santa Cruz and completed her doctorate on African-American art history at the Department of African Art at the Free University of Berlin.
About Gitte Zschoch
Secretary General of ifa – Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen: “We are extremely pleased that Kathleen Reinhardt, who enriches the international art scene with her visionary and interdisciplinary approach, has been selected as curator for the German Pavilion. Through her curatorial work, Kathleen Reinhardt manages to promote a profound dialogue between different perspectives and thus use art as a unifying element. We are convinced that her contribution to the Biennale will have a significant impact on the global art landscape.”
About ifa
ifa – Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen works with partners worldwide to promote freedom in the arts, research and civil society. It gives activists, artists and academics a voice, promotes cooperation and increasingly pursues its goals with European partners. Based on its core competences of art, research and civil society, ifa builds networks to achieve sustainable impact.
