GRAZ.- The Grazer Kunstverein announces the appointment of Yana Foqué (Belgium,1986) as the new director of the Grazer Kunstverein. She takes up her post this January, 2026. Her program will begin in April 2026.

The decision was made following an international selection process with subsequent hearings, in which over 115 national and international applicants participated. The Grazer Kunstverein is delighted to have gained Yana Foqué, an internationally experienced curator, writer and cultural manager, for this position.

Yana Foqué was Executive Director and Chief Curator at Kunstverein (Amsterdam) until March 2025. Her curatorial practice is characterised by innovative exhibition formats, a strong international network, and a clear content profile. She is currently based in Vilnius, Lithuania.

With the appointment of Yana Foqué, Grazer Kunstverein sends a clear signal for the institution’s internationally oriented, future-focused development and looks forward to working with her onwards.

Foqué: “I have long admired the Grazer Kunstverein for its resistance to trends, its profile shaped instead by successive directors who have, each in their own way, centered their programs in close proximity to the artists they invited. Through a gradual accumulation of their varied approaches, the Grazer Kunstverein has produced a singular institutional voice—made possible by a board unafraid of supporting both risk and specificity. Spaces such as these are becoming increasingly important and, at the same time, increasingly rare. I am thrilled that, exactly in the Kunstverein’s fortieth year, I am able to contribute my own syntax to this ongoing sentence. My work will continue to engage artists whose practices defy easy categorization—or, more precisely, whose practices reveal the institutional frameworks and formats through which we work, and in doing so nudge how an institution thinks, behaves, and changes.”

The Grazer Kunstverein would like to thank its previous artistic director, Tom Engels, for his excellent artistic leadership over the past four years. Tom Engels is leaving the Grazer Kunstverein and has been appointed director of the Münchner Kunstverein.