German curator Wulf Herzogenrath dies at 82

Wulf Herzogenrath, the former longtime director of the Kunsthalle Bremen, died on Thursday in Berlin at age 82 after a short severe illness. Born in 1944 in Rathenow, Brandenburg, he studied art history and earned his doctorate in 1970 in Bonn with a dissertation on Oskar Schlemmer's murals. From 1973 to 1989 he directed the Kölnischer Kunstverein. Between 1989 and 1994, as chief curator of the Nationalgalerie Berlin, he oversaw the conception of the new Museum für Gegenwart at the Hamburger Bahnhof. In 1994 he became director of the Kunsthalle Bremen, a position he held until 2011. After Bremen, he chaired the visual arts section of the Berlin Academy of the Arts. He served on the leadership teams of Documenta 6 (1977) and Documenta 8 (1987) in Kassel, and from 1985 to 1993 sat on the advisory board of the Goethe-Institut in Munich. Bremen's culture senator Carmen Emigholz (SPD) credited Herzogenrath with positioning the Kunsthalle Bremen among Germany's top museums and opening it to a broad public, making art accessible to many social strata.