MIAMI.- Miami Art Museum (MAM) today announced the appointment of Roger M. Buergel as the Museum’s first Chief Curator, Deputy Director for Programs. Buergel, a curator, professor of art history, and noted scholar of visual theory, will assume this new position in October 2008.

"Roger will add a critical voice to the international dialogue encouraged here at MAM," said Director Terry Riley. "His background as an independent curator of boundarypushing exhibitions and his commitment to education as a core mission of the museum will strengthen our abilities to create an engaging and stimulating experience for our diverse audiences."

Buergel joins MAM at an important moment in its history. Early next year, the Museum will break ground on its new 120,000-square-foot building in downtown Miami designed by Herzog & de Meuron, scheduled to open in 2012. In anticipation of this move, MAM continues to build its permanent collection, strengthening its holdings of 20th and 21st century art, and expand its innovative education programs.

"I am excited to begin my work with MAM at this time of transformation, and to help define the Museum's role within the city's civic and cultural landscapes," said Roger M. Buergel. "I was drawn to Miami by its robust arts ecology and international perspective, but also by the opportunities that this position will provide to collaborate with artists from all continents, to shape the collection, and to connect with diverse audiences."

Buergel has received acclaim throughout Europe as an organizer of provocative exhibitions that examine the intersection of aesthetics, politics, and culture. In 2007 he served as Artistic Director of Documenta XII, a polemical exhibition which moved beyond the Western paradigm of art and was celebrated for its emphasis on the aesthetic experience and its innovative education programs. In 2002 Buergel became the first recipient of the Menil Collection's Walter Hopps Award for Curatorial Achievement.

His groundbreaking exhibition Governmentality (Die Regierung) opened at the University Art Gallery in Luneburg, Germany in 2003 and traveled internationally to venues such as Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona and Miami Art Central (which has since merged into MAM). Earlier exhibitions include Painting Between Vulgarity and the Sublime (1999), a conceptual exhibition on Abstract Expressionism which was accompanied by an anthology Buergel edited about Post-war American Art, and Things We Don't Understand (2000), an attempt to redefine the concept of aesthetic autonomy. Several of Buergel’s exhibitions, including Documenta XII, were co-curated with the art historian Ruth Noack.

Buergel has published and lectured widely on curatorial methods and has helped facilitate a discourse on the exhibition as a medium in itself. At MAM he will oversee the curatorial department and direct the Museum’s education initiatives.

Born in Berlin in 1962, he attended the Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna and the University of Vienna, where he studied art, philosophy, economics, and aesthetics. From 2001 to 2005, he lectured in visual theory and curatorial studies at Luneburg University, and in 2007 he served as a visiting professor of art history at the Academy of Fine Arts, Karlsruhe. Buergel is cofounder of the art magazine Springerin-Hefte für Gegenwartskunst.