Sabine Folie Appointed New Director of the Art Collections of the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna

The management of the art collections with Paintings Gallery, Graphic Collection and Plaster Cast Collection was put out to tender in spring 2021. After the hearings in mid-July, in which not only the international selection committee but also employees from all three collections were involved, a unanimous decision was made.

The experienced art historian, author and curator will drive forward the reorientation of the content of the important historical collections in the field of interaction with current teaching and contemporary art production against the backdrop of the relocation to the renovated historical building on Schillerplatz. The Rectorate is very much looking forward to working with Sabine Folie, who will set new impulses with her diverse experiences and perspectives:

“A well-versed curator and scientist like Sabine Folie, who can work in several fields at the same time, is of great importance for the development of the academy in order to prospectively promote the appropriation and reception of the historical collections in particular. With an outstanding academic team of specialists both inside and outside the building, she will develop groundbreaking programmes and exhibitions that will open up new publics for the Academy beyond the students and existing friends of the collection," says Rector Johan Hartle.

Folie completed her studies in art history and ancient history. Since her dissertation, her studies on aesthetics in art and the "afterlife of forms" from the Renaissance to the present have shaped her approach to the conception of exhibitions, including contemporary ones. Although Sabine Folie's thematic focus in recent decades has been primarily in the field of contemporary art in connection with cultural studies discourses, her burning interest in historical collections has always influenced her work. Her vita shows that this is not a contradiction and describes it as follows: "Contemporary art also stands in and feeds on a long tradition of seeing and this may be conveyed and translated. I see the "transhistorical" museum of today, which has been discussed in many ways in recent years, as one in which past, present and future work in permanent exchange and mutual resonance; in this way, historical collections can also preserve and activate their vitality for a current contemporaneity."

In addition to her passion for ancient art, visual studies, museological discourse and the transdisciplinary, the designated director fulfils all the requirements for this position: Sabine Folie has been the director of the VALIE EXPORT Center Linz_Research Centre for Media and Performance Art and professor for Performance Art and Time-related Media Art at the Kunstuniversität Linz since November 2017. She taught theory at the Bauhaus University Weimar as part of the MFA Public Art and New Artistic Strategies (2017-2019). She was Director of the Generali Foundation, Vienna from 2008 to 2014 and Chief Curator of Kunsthalle Wien from 1998 to 2008. Since the early 1990s, she has curated numerous exhibitions and edited publications.