Stefan Kalmár


Stefan Kalmár is a German curator and has been the Director of the Institute of Contemporary Arts, London since 2016.
Kalmár was Executive Director and Chief Curator of Artists Space, New York from 2009 to 2016, Director of Kunstverein München from 2004 to 2009, Director of the Institute of Visual Culture, Cambridge from 2000 to 2004 and Artistic Director of Cubitt Gallery, London from 1997 to 1999.
Kalmár was a judge for the Turner Prize in 2014.
Kalmár is a member of the Artistic Team for the 13th edition of Manifesta in Marseille 2020, together with Alya Sebti and Katerina Chuchalina.

Education

Kalmár studied Cultural Studies at University of Hildesheim, Germany before moving to London in 1995 to continue to study Cultural and Curatorial Studies at Goldsmiths College, London.

Career

ICA

Under Kalmár’s directorship, the ICA signed the No Fossil Fuel Money Pledge and became an accredited Living Wage employer. The ICA cinema became fully independent and live performance, theatre and literature were reintroduced to the ICA programme.
In an interview published in Frieze in 2017, Kalmár outlined his future ambitions for the ICA to be an organization that revitalizes the belief and the civic responsibility of cultural institutions by trying to create an organizational structure that not only disclaims its own contradictions but actively tries to overcome them.
Named in ArtReview's 2019 Power 100, Kalmár commented, 'We are in a time of crisis' in reference to Brexit and the rise of populism, and stated that 'these are times for artists to lead' regarding the announcement of Wolfgang Tillmans' appointment as Chair of the ICA's Board.

Artists Space

Notable exhibitions during Kalmár’s tenure include presentations on and collaborations with artists and curators such as Chris Kraus and Julie Ault, Danh Vo, Bernadette Corporation, Cameron Rowland, Laura Poitras, Zilia Sánchez, Lukas Duwenhögger, Marc Camille Chaimowicz and The Estate of Charlotte Posenenske. In a review of the Charlotte Posenenske exhibition, The New York Times art critic, Roberta Smith, wrote, 'It occurred to me that if Alfred H. Barr Jr., founding director of the Museum of Modern Art, were dropped into Mr. Kalmár’s shoes, he would have come up with something similar'.
In 2016 Kalmár said that Artists Space has been increasingly involved in addressing the interplay and blurred lines between contemporary art and political practice with a focus on gentrification and how contemporary arts organisations “institutionalise antagonisms.” Artists Space and Common Practice invited artists Nitasha Dhillon and Amin Husain of the collective MTL+ to facilitate programming that would unite activist groups across the city under five “strands”: Indigenous Struggle, Black Liberation, Free Palestine, Global Wage Workers, and De-Gentrification.
In 2012, Kalmár introduced a second location, Artists Space Books & Talks, which has become a platform for critical discussion in contemporary art and culture.
Artists Space’s 2012 exhibition Radical Localism: Art, Video and Culture From Pueblo Nuevo’s Mexicali Rose, was described by The New York Times as ‘a small but vigorous sampling of what is emerging’ from Mexicali Rose, an alternative art space and community centre established by the filmmaker Marco Vera in Pueblo Nuevo, a working-class neighbourhood in Mexicali, a city on the Mexican side of the border with the United States.

Exhibitions

Selected exhibitions organised by Kalmár at Artists Space