Bice Curiger in conversation with Kathrin Bentele, Artistic Director

The Kunsthalle Friart Fribourg is delighted to invite you to a conversation between Bice Curiger and Kathrin Bentele on Saturday, September 26, 2026 at 3:30 pm. The conversation will be held in German.

As a curator and art critic, Bice Curiger has explored how contemporary art and history can be made “porous” and brought into relation with one another, and what a contemporary perspective on art history might look like – one that actualizes and engages with it rather than merely historicizes what is already known. Her exhibitions often draw from associative, personal and poetic connections, challenging the notion of historical linearity. In conversation with Kathrin Bentele, Bice Curiger will reflect on her diverse practice over the past 40 years, which brings together writing, curating, and publishing, and is grounded in a deep trust in the irreducible presence and communicative capacity of artworks. The conversation will also touch on questions of mediation, audiences, scenography/staging, involvement, and the changing role of curators.

Bice Curiger (*1948) is a curator, author and art historian, and was a co-founder and editor-in-chief of the art magazine Parkett. In the 1970s, she began writing art criticism for the Tages-Anzeiger and organized her first exhibitions, including Frauen sehen Frauen (1975) and Saus und Braus (1980), at the Museum Strauhof in Zurich. As an independent collaborator at the Kunsthaus Zürich, she curated thematic group exhibitions from 1992 to 2012, including Endstation Sehnsucht (1994), Birth of the Cool (1997), Freie Sicht aufs Mittelmeer (1998), and Public Affairs. Von Beuys bis Zittel – das Öffentliche in der Kunst (2002), as well as numerous monographic exhibitions, including presentations devoted to Georgia O’Keeffe and Sigmar Polke, with whom she shared a close friendship. Curiger was the curator of the 54th Venice Biennale, ILLUMInazioni / ILLUMInations (2011), and served as Director of the Fondation Vincent van Gogh in Arles from 2012 to 2025. As an independent curator, she has also organized exhibitions for institutions including the Centre Pompidou in Paris, the Centre Culturel Suisse in Paris, the Hayward Gallery in London, and the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao.