Judith Schwarzbart

Judith Schwarzbart is an art historian based in Copenhagen. She has worked as a curator, writer, teacher in art theory and cultural studies, and institutional development. Currently, she is a project manager of programme at Konstmuseet i Kungsparken – the temporary space and future location of Malmö Art Museum. Here place-making and art/artist-driven development and learning is at the centre of the activities – both public programme and collaborations of various kinds.

At the centre of her interest is a performative and instituent practice and a collaborative mode of working.
She has worked as deputy director at Kin Museum of Contemporary Art in Kiruna (2023-25), where she among others worked on institutional development. During that time, she curatorially focused on craft and cultural activism, extractivism, indigenous rights, epistemology and ways of being with nature. Topics that have a strong presence in the area but seem more peripheral in the overconsuming wealthy societies at a safe distance from the production and costs of consumption.

As rector of Jutland Art Academy in Aarhus (2016-22) she worked with rethinking art education together with the faculty and students of the academy. In 2007-08 with Charlotte Bagger Brand and Solvej Helweg Ovesen, she developed and co-curated the large-scale project U-TURN in København with satellites in Stege, Berlin, Cluj-Napoca/Idea and Budapest. The project aimed at finding alternative ways for combining knowledge production with residencies, commissions and exhibition. In between she has been lecturing at Performance Design at Roskilde University (2009-15) and worked on smaller curatorial project. Moreover, she has been an associated guest-teacher in Art Theory at Fynen Art Academy, Odense, Umeå Art Academy, Royal Institute of Art, Stockholm, and latest in Contemporary Art Practices at Sunderby Folkhögskola, Luleå.

Curating as Place-making

We often talk about curating as a tool for change. With our current work in Kungsparken this becomes very concrete. The temporary use of the former park restaurant and casino is not only a repurposing of a space but also an occasion for testing being and doing art museum in other ways, for inviting people in under other conditions. I like to think that there is a possibility in curating – and programming in a broader sense – to organically grow a new place, to develop new aspects of institutional life together with partners, communities and audience.
Big questions occur: How can we offer the visitor a higher level of agency in the use of the place? How can we move from teaching to learning? How can we expand on the possible roles art can play? How can we provide situations for social encounters of diverse kinds, that is finding communities of like-minded as well as meeting radical difference (class, ethnicity, political views etc.)? The presentation will present a couple of concrete examples for the current program.