The internationally renowned German curator Kasper König, co-founder of the Skulptur Projekte Münster and one of the most influential exhibition organizers of contemporary art of his time, has died in Berlin at the age of 80, the Museum Ludwig announced in a press release. The cause of death was not disclosed.
König has “shaped the art discourse of the last five decades like no other,” says the Museum Ludwig in Cologne, whose director he was from 2000 to 2012. The museum mourns “a generous, independent, humorous, energetic person who always swept us away with his enthusiasm for art.”
König was born in Mettingen in northwest Germany in 1943 and began his career as an intern at the Rudolf Zwirner Gallery in Cologne. In the Rhineland he met artists such as Joseph Beuys, Sigmar Polke and Gerhard Richter, who later served as best man at König’s wedding. In 1963 he went to London to work in commercial galleries and attend lectures at the Courtauld Institute.
In 1965 his work took him to New York, where he lived until 1978 and acquired an extensive international network; while working on European exhibition projects he met artists such as Carl Andre, Hanne Darboven, Dan Graham, On Kawara, Sol LeWitt, Bruce Nauman and Andy Warhol. At the age of 23 he curated his first exhibition – a Claes Oldenburg show in Stockholm. In 1968 he founded an art publishing house with his brother. Walther Koenig’s company now operates bookstores in most German cities as well as in museums.
The first Sculpture Projects Münster, conceived by König and Klaus Bussmann as a way to bring modern and contemporary art closer to the city’s population, took place in 1977. Artists were invited to choose a location in the city where they wanted to place a sculpture. Since then, the project has taken place every ten years and has become an important aspect of the cathedral city’s identity and international profile.
In 1978, König returned to Germany, where he taught at the Düsseldorf Art Academy from 1984 and from 1988 as a professor at the Städel Art Academy in Frankfurt, where he was rector from 1989. In 1987, he founded the Portikus in Frankfurt, a space affiliated with the Städel School dedicated to exhibiting young and emerging contemporary artists.
His son Johann König described in his autobiography growing up with his parents in Cologne in the 1980s: “Dan Graham lived with us for a while. We went on holiday with On Kawara. After a ‘Fluxus baptism’, Nam June Paik was my godfather… I played football between an Andy Warhol Brillo BoxA Room concept Bronze by Lucio Fontana and a sofa by Franz West.”
King’s 12-year tenure at the Museum Ludwig in Cologne came at a critical time for the city, which was losing its decades-long status as the center of the German art world to Berlin. “With his knowledge, his judgment and his incorruptibility, he has brought the Museum Ludwig back to world-class level,” said Yilmaz Dziewior, the museum’s current director.
In 2003, König curated the Austrian Pavilion for the Venice Biennale. Among the dozens of solo exhibitions he has curated were exhibitions on Donald Judd, AR Penck, On Kawara, Richter, Gregor Schneider, Isa Genzken and Wolfgang Tillmans. In 2014, he curated the controversial Manifesto 10 Exhibition in St. Petersburg and took over the artistic direction of the Sculpture Projects Münster in 2017. In 2009, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum honored König’s career with a Lifetime Achievement Award.
He did not see himself as a classic collector, but rather bought spontaneously or received gifts. He donated 50 works to the Museum Ludwig last year, including works by Pawel Althamer, Maria Eichhorn, Genzken, Graham, Thomas Hirschhorn, Jenny Holzer, Richard Long and Jeremy Deller.
Cologne-based auction house Van Ham announced last month that it will auction 400 works from König’s collection on October 1 and 2. Artists on offer include On Kawara, Nicole Eisenman, Maria Lassnig and Polke.
König was married four times: to Ilka Schellenberg, with whom he had two daughters and a son; then to Edda Köchl, an actress and illustrator and mother of his younger son; to Barbara Weiss, a Berlin art dealer who died in 2016; and finally to Heidi Specker, an artist living in Berlin. König’s sons Leo and Johann are both art dealers – Leo in New York and Johann in Berlin.
- Kasper König; born on November 21, 1943 in Mettingen, Germany; died Berlin August 9, 2024
