Charles Esche
Charles Esche
Director of the Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, the Netherlands
Charles Esche (b.1962) is a curator and writer.
He is Director of the Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven and co-editor of
Afterall Journal and Books, based at Central St.Martins College of
Art and Design, London. He is also an advisor at the Rijksakademie,
Amsterdam. In the last years, he curated major exhibitions
including the 2nd and 3rd Riwaq Biennials, Palestine, 2007 and
2009; the 9th Istanbul Biennial 2005 with Vasif Kortun, Esra
Sarigedik Öktem and November Paynter and the Gwangju Biennale 2002
in Korea with Hou Hanru and Song Wang Kyung. Before that he was
co-curator of 'Intelligence – New British Art' at the Tate Gallery,
London and 'Amateur – Variable Research Initiatives' at Konstmuseum
and Konsthall, Göteborg, both in 2000.
From 2000–2004 he was Director of the Rooseum Center for
Contemporary Art, Malmö, where he made solo exhibitions with Surasi
Kusolwong, Nedko Solakov and Superflex a.o. and group shows
including 'Baltic Babel' and 'Intentional Communities'. From
1998–2002 he organised the international art academic research
project called 'protoacademy' at Edinburgh College of Art. From
1993–1997 he was Visual Arts Director at Tramway, Glasgow where he
curated exhibitions by Elisabeth Ballet, Christine Borland,
Roderick Buchanan Douglas Gordon, Jonathan Monk, Stephen Willats
and Richard Wright as well as group shows such as Trust and The
Unbelievable Truth.
A book of his selected writings, Modest Proposals, was
published by Baglam Press, Istanbul in 2005. He has written for
numerous catalogues and magazines including: The
Netherlands, for example (ed.), JP Ringier, 2007;
Collective Creativity, Fredericianum, Kassel, 2006;
Artur Zmijewski, Hatje Cantz Verlag, 2005; Shifting
Map, NAI, Rotterdam, 2004. He has written for art magazines
such as Artforum, frieze, Parkett and
Art Monthly among others.
