Dr. STEPHAN E. HAUSER (b. 1963). Studied art history, classical archaeology and modern general history in Basel. Doctorate on the concept of the image in Surrealism. 1990-1993 in New York, NY (collaboration on Lyonel Feiniger project) and New Haven, CT (estate of Kurt Seligmann). 1997-98 one year at the CNRS in Paris (“Le Surréalisme au carrefour des modernités”). Author of the monograph “Kurt Seligmann (1900-1962). Leben und Werk”, Basel: Schwabe, 1997. Research fellow at the Schaulager, Münchenstein/Basel since 2004. At the same time, regular lecturing appointments with a focus on artist estates at the Department of Art History at the University of Basel. Since 2023, president of the sponsoring organisation ARK Archiv regionaler Künstler:innen-Nachlässe Basel. Numerous essays and articles (e.g., on Feininger, Duchamp, and on Swiss art of the modern and contemporary eras).

GABRIELE KNAPSTEIN is Deputy Director and Collection Manager at the Hamburger Bahnhof – National Gallery for the Present. She has been a Research Assistant at this institution since 2003 and Exhibition Director since 2012. Previously, she worked as a freelance curator for the Institute for Foreign Relations (ifa) and for the Galerie Neue Meister in Dresden. After receiving her doctorate in 1999 with the first scientific study on the event scores by the Fluxus artist George Brecht, she became a research museum assistant in advanced training at the Hamburger Bahnhof and in the art library of the State Museums in Berlin. She curated exhibitions such as Black Mountain. An interdisciplinary experiment 1933 – 1957, Wall Works, Architektonika and Beyond the Cinema. The Art of Projection.

MATÍAS MARTÍNEZ is professor of modern German literary history at the University of Wuppertal and founding director of the Wuppertal Center for Narrative Research (ZEF). His research areas include narratology, romanticism and modern poetry. Some publications: Wirklichkeitserzählungen. Felder, Formen und Funktionen nichtliterarischen Erzählens (co-ed., 2010), Klassiker der modernen Literaturtheorie (co-ed., 2010), Handbuch Erzählliteratur (ed., 2011), Fiktionalität und Non-Fiktionalität (ed., 2016), Handbuch Erzählen (ed., 2017), Einführung in die Erzähltheorie (co author, 11. Aufl. 2019), Postfaktisches Erzählen? Post-Truth – Fake News – Narration (ed., 2021).

CATHERINE NICHOLS is an art and literary scholar, curator and author. She is currently working as a curator at the Hamburger Bahnhof – Nationalgalerie der Kulturen in Berlin and recently curated the Manifesta 14 Prishtina: it matters what worlds world worlds: how to tell stories otherwise. In 2021 she was artistic director of the anniversary program “Beuys 2021. 100 years of Joseph Beuys”. In addition to numerous cultural-historical exhibitions throughout Germany on topics ranging from the Reformation to passions, from the sun to sexuality, she has realized numerous monographic and thematic art exhibitions, including “Beuys. We are the revolution” (2008), “The end of the 20th century. The Best is Yet to Come” (2013) and “Das Kapital. Guilt – Territory – Utopia” (2016) and “Every person is an artist. Cosmopolitan Exercises with Joseph Beuys” (2021). She publishes regularly on contemporary art and has co-edited several books and catalogs, including The New Designer—Design as a profession (2023), Shine on Me: We and the Sun (2018), and Black Mountain. An interdisciplinary experiment 1933–1957” (2015).

MAYA SCHWEIZER (*1976 in Paris) studied art and art history in Aix-en-Provence, at the Leipzig University of Graphics and Book Arts and at the Berlin University of the Arts, where she graduated in 2007 as a master student with Lothar Baumgarten. Her cinematic works revolve around questions of history, identity and memory. Urban spaces as interfaces of individual and collective modes of action are often the starting point of her observation. In her perception of these places and spaces, she uncovers social realities, inscribed narratives and overlapping histories. Her works have been shown in numerous international solo and group exhibitions. In 2023 she received the Dagesh Art Prize at the Jewish Museum Berlin and was honored with a solo exhibition there.

SIMON STARLING (*1967 in Epsom, UK) lives and works in Copenhagen. He studied at Maidstone College of Art (1986–7) and Trent Polytechnic, Nottingham (1987–90) before completing an MFA at Glasgow School of Art in 1992. Interested in the journeys of people and objects, the origins of desire, and the value of materials, some of Starling’s most notable works have transformed one object into another. So in 1996, Starling used the metal from an antique silver spoon to make copies of a counterfeit twenty pence piece he had found. His work has been shown worldwide, including at the Venice Biennale in 2003 and 2009. In 2005 he was awarded the Turner Prize. His most recent exhibitions include “Two Birds, No Birds” at Casey Kaplan in New York (2023) and “The Pencil of Menzel & The Path on the Wolf” at neugerriemschneider in Berlin (2021).