Wulf Herzogenrath


Wulf Herzogenrath, Germany is a German art historian and curator. He is a leading expert in Video art and Bauhaus.

Early life and education

Herzogenrath studied art history, archaeology und ethnology in Kiel, Berlin and Bonn. 1967 - 1968 he edited the exhibition catalog "50 Jahre Bauhaus“. He received his doctorate in 1970 with a thesis on Oskar Schlemmer murals.
In 1973 the 28-year-old Herzogenrath was hired to be the youngest ever director of a German Kunstverein in Cologne, Germany.
From 1989 he was the chief curator of the National Gallery, entrusted with the Hamburger Bahnhof division for contemporary art. Herzogenrath left in 1994 to lead the Kunsthalle Bremen until his retirement in 2011. He relocated to Berlin in 2013.
Since 2012 he is the director of the visual arts section of the German , Berlin.

Curatorial work

In 1976 he organized the first European one man show of Nam June Paik at the Kölnischer Kunstverein. He curated the video section of Documenta 6 with Nam June Paik and Wolf Vostell, and was part of the Documenta 8 curatorial team.
in 2006 he initiated 2006 a collection of 59 seminal video art works from 1963 to 2006. The resulting exhibition series was shown simultaneously in five German museums. A DVD set documents the exhibition and all video works.

Honors