MALMO.- Iris Müller-Westermann has been appointed the new director of Moderna Museet Malmö. She is currently a senior curator at Moderna Museet Stockholm, and will take up her new position on 1 January, 2017.

Iris Müller-Westermann (born 1955) has worked at Moderna Museet in Stockholm since 1997. She has curated some of the Museum’s most widely acknowledged exhibitions: Louise Bourgeois – I Have Been to Hell and Back, Lee Lozano, Jutta Koether, Rosemarie Trockel, Munch By Himself, Max Ernst – Dream and Revolution, and, last but not least, the greatly acclaimed exhibition Hilma af Klint – A Pioneer of Abstraction, which toured Europe and was seen by more than one million visitors. The exhibitions curated by Iris Müller-Westermann, of groundbreaking as well as more accessible artistic oeuvres, have been recognised and appreciated by both critics and the public, in Sweden and internationally. She has studied philosophy and literature and has a PhD in art history from the University of Hamburg. She has previously held various positions at the Munch Museum in Oslo, and was also the director of the Stenersen Museum in Oslo.

“Iris Müller-Westermann is one of Sweden’s most prominent figures on the art scene. She has curated a large number of exhibitions that have attracted huge international recognition, most recently the acclaimed retrospectives on Louise Bourgeois and Hilma af Klint. This speaks for itself. With her profound knowledge and her wide international network, Iris Müller-Westermann will contribute to further strengthening Moderna Museet’s presence in the Öresund region,” says Daniel Birnbaum, Director of Moderna Museet.

The assignment as director of Moderna Museet Malmö is to continue promoting the Museum as an independent institution, as well as creating further collaborations within Moderna Museet and with external partners, and to increase the Museum’s presence and appeal in the Öresund region.

“I look forward to moving to Malmö, which is an expansive and dynamic city where the world’s cultures meet. It is going to be exciting to continue developing Moderna Museet Malmö as an international meeting place and to contribute to public debate in the Öresund region,” says Iris Müller-Westermann.

Moderna Museet has a national mission that involves collecting, preserving, showing and communicating 20th and 21st century art of all kinds. The Museum's presence in two places gives it a unique potential to make one of northern Europe’s finest art collections accessible to a larger public. Moderna Museet Malmö will continue to curate its own exhibitions of contemporary art, alongside experimental exhibitions based on the unique Moderna Museet collection. The exhibitions produced in Malmö can be toured to Moderna Museet Stockholm and other institutions in Europe and the rest of the world.

Iris Müller-Westermann succeeds John Peter Nilsson, who concludes his appointment at the end of the year and will return to his position as a curator at Moderna Museet in Stockholm. Iris Müller-Westermann takes up her post as the director of Moderna Museet Malmö on 1 January, 2017.