— Über

Kolja Reichert is an art critic and, since January 1st, 2024, chief curator of K21 at the Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen in Düsseldorf. Before, he was curator for discourse at Bundeskunsthalle in Bonn. He is the author of Could I do that? 50 Questions for Art and Crypto Art: NFTs and Digital Ownership. In his writing for newspapers and art magazines since 2006, he has addressed the crises of the art market (also here and here) and the shifting roles and modes of operation of exhibitions, artworks, museums, and audiences (here's a talk on this). In the aftermath of Jay-Z kidnapping the New York art scene and Marina Abramović's "The Artist is Present", Kolja Reichert coined the term "celebritive turn." When he asked Marina Abramović why she supported Jay-Z's art hack, her answer vent viral. As member of the editorial board of Spike Art Quarterly, Kolja moderated popular discussions at Spike Berlin, for example on History in a Time of Hypercirculation with DIS, Hito Steyerl and Susanne von Falkenhausen. Kolja Reichert has introduced Hito Steyerl's work in German mainstream media (here and here, also see The Trump-Balenciaga complex), also post-internet art, and later NFTs (long essay). With his commentary on the scandals around Sam Durant's and Dana Schutz' works in 2017, he helped shape the German debate on identity politics in art. Later, he wrote this short essay on the matter for Arts of the Working Class. He has been the editor for visual art at the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, and later at the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung, where he organised a cadavre exquis with new works by Joan Jonas, Julie Mehretu, Thomas Demand, Franz Erhard Walther, Kerstin Brätsch, Laure Prouvost, Frida Orupabo, Thomas Scheibitz, Andrea Büttner, Peles Empire, and James Richards. He wrote catalogue essays on the works of Kai Althoff, Renzo Martens, Heiner Franzen and Franz Erhard Walther (also here). In 2015, he curated the show "Produktion" in the framework of the Vienna gallery festival curated by (tour). In 2010, he wrote short essays on the exhibited works in the catalogue for the Berlin Biennale 6. He has taught at Städelschule, HGB Leipzig, UdK Berlin, KH Weißensee, and Institut Kunst in Basel. He received awards for his writing from the association of German Kunstvereine and the Akademie der Künste Berlin. This website is an archive of Kolja's writing before 2016. You can follow him on Instagram.

adkv - art cologne preis
für kunstkritik 2012

Will-Grohmann-Preis
der Akademie der Künste 2018