Charles Esche (born 1962, in England) is a museum director, curator and writer. His focus is on art and how it reflects, provokes and influences changes in society. He lives between Edinburgh and Eindhoven.
Career
Since 2004, he has been director of the
Van Abbemuseum
The Van Abbemuseum () is a museum of modern and contemporary art in central Eindhoven, Netherlands, on the east bank of the Dommel River. Established in 1936, the museum is named after its founder, Henri van Abbe, who loved modern art and wante ...
,
Eindhoven,
Netherlands
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. In 2012, he established together with 6 other European museums the L'Internationale confederation that aims to establish a European modern and contemporary art institution by 2017. He curated Power and Other Things: Indonesia and Art 1835-today at BOZAR, Brussel in 2017 together with Riksa Afiaty.
He is also professor of curating and contemporary art at the
University of the Arts London and is co-editorial director of ''
Afterall
Afterall is a nonprofit contemporary art research and publishing organisation. It is based in London, at Central St Martins College of Art & Design. It publishes the journal ''Afterall;'' the book series ''Readers,'' ''One Works'' and ''Exhibit ...
Journal'' and Afterall Books with
Mark Lewis. Afterall is a contemporary art publisher which was launched in 1998 and is based at
Central Saint Martins
Central Saint Martins is a public tertiary art school in London, England. It is a constituent college of the University of the Arts London. It offers full-time courses at foundation, undergraduate and postgraduate levels, and a variety of shor ...
College of Art and Design. London. It publishes a respected journal and the Exhibition Histories and One Work of Art series. Afterall also produces occasional readers such as Art and Social Change edited by Esche with Will Bradley.
He has (co)curated a number of international contemporary art biennales and other events including Lost Museum, Kunsthalle Oslo, 2017 and Musée Égaré, Printemps de Septembre, Toulouse 2016; the 31st São Paulo Bienal in 2014, and the 2015 Jakarta Biennale.
Earlier he made exhibitions including ''It Doesn't have to be Beautiful Unless it's Beautiful'' at National Gallery of Kosovo, Prishtinë, 2012 (with G.Eilat); ''Strange and Close'' for
CAPC, Bordeaux, 2011 (a presentation of the Van Abbemuseum Collection); and ''An Idea for Living'', U3 Slovene Triennale, Moderna Galerija, Ljubljana, 2011. In 2009 and 2007 he was co-curator with Khalil Rabah and Reem Fadda of the 2nd and 3rd RIWAQ Biennials, Ramallah, Palestine. In 2005 he was co-curator of the 9th International
Istanbul Biennial
The Istanbul Biennial is a contemporary art exhibition that has been held biennially in Istanbul, Turkey, since 1987. The Biennial has been organised by the Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts (IKSV) since its inception. Format
Istanbul Bien ...
with
Vasif Kortun Vasif Kortun (born November 6, 1958) is a curator, writer and educator in the field of contemporary art, its institutions, and exhibition practices. Kortun served as the founding director of several international institutions, including SALT, Platf ...
, Esra Saregidik and November Paynter, and in 2002 the co-curator with Hou Hanru and Song Wan Kyung of the
Gwangju Biennale,
Republic of Korea
South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia, constituting the southern part of the Korean Peninsula and sharing a land border with North Korea. Its western border is formed by the Yellow Sea, while its ea ...
.' In 2000, he co-curated ''Intelligence: Tate Triennial at Tate Britain, London with Virginia Button'' and ''Amateur: Variable Research Initiatives'' at Kunstmuseum, Göteborg, Sweden.
Between 2000 and 2004 he was the director of
Rooseum Center for Contemporary Art in Malmo,
Sweden. Before that he was at Tramway, Glasgow (1993–97), and founded the proto-academy in Edinburgh (1997–2001).
His main work has involved the theory and practice of art museums, but also the qualities of the art centre or biennial. His writings on institutional possibility and policy are useful aids to rethinking the relation between art and social change. A valuable book is the reader ''Art and Social Change'' published by Afterall and Tate Publishing and co-edited by Esche and Will Bradley. A selection of his texts was published in 2005 under the title ''Modest Proposals'' by Baglam Press, Istanbul in Turkish and English, edited by
Serkan Ozkaya.
There are a further selection of texts at Academia.edu and Mendeley.
Awards
In 2012 he received the
European Cultural Foundation
The European Cultural Foundation (ECF) is a Netherlands-based independent cultural foundation. Its mission is to “make a tangible impact on civil society, citizen initiatives, public opinion and policy proposals to combat the fragmenting forces ...
's Princess Margriet Award and in 2013 the Minimum Prize from the Pistoletto Foundation. In 2014 he was awarded the CCS Bard College Audrey Irmas Award for Curatorial Excellence.
curatorial-excellence
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Bibliography
Interviews
*
References
External links
*http://www.studiointernational.com/index.php/charles-esche
{{DEFAULTSORT:Esche, Charles
1963 births
Living people
Directors of museums in the Netherlands
British art curators
British art critics