Tate announced today that Dr Andrea Schlieker (born Lübeck, Germany) has been appointed Director of Exhibitions and Displays at Tate Britain. She will take up the position at the beginning of September 2018. She joins Tate Britain’s Directors - Alex Farquharson, Director of Tate Britain; and Ann Gallagher, Director of Collection, British Art - in a new role which will focus on the exhibitions and displays programme.
Dr Schlieker is Director of Commissions and External Projects at White Cube, a post she has held since 2012, and where she has worked closely with a wide range of British and international contemporary artists. She was Founding Curator of the internationally renowned Folkestone Triennial and delivered the inaugural and second Triennials there in 2008 and 2011, with a lasting legacy of permanent commissions spread across the public spaces of the seaside town. She also worked curatorially on many other prestigious national and international projects such as My City, a major art commission programme in Turkey across five different cities (2010); the Fourth Plinth project in Trafalgar Square, London (2005-2007); and the British Art Show 6 which opened at Baltic in 2005, touring the UK for one year.
Dr Schlieker’s distinguished curatorial career began in 1984 at the Arnolfini in Bristol. It has included working at London’s Institute of Contemporary Arts, and the Serpentine Gallery (Deputy Director,1988 to 1995). She has worked on many national and international exhibitions in a freelance capacity as well as a wide range of permanently-sited public art commissions in the UK and abroad, among them Antony Gormley’s Angel of the North and Rachel Whiteread’s Holocaust Memorial in Vienna.
From 1996 to 2006 she was consultant lecturer on the MA course for Post War and Contemporary Art at Sotheby's Institute. She has written numerous scholarly texts and has lectured widely in the UK, Europe, the US and Japan. She holds a PhD in Art History from Bonn University on the subject of the Arts and Crafts Movement in Britain.
Alex Farquharson, Director of Tate Britain said:
“We are thrilled to announce that Andrea Schlieker has been appointed Director of Exhibitions and Displays at Tate Britain. Not only is she demonstrably committed to making art available to the widest possible audience but she combines extensive experience of working with artists, both national and international, with a strong academic background in art history.”
Andrea Schlieker said:
“I am delighted to be joining this world-class institution and its excellent team of curators at a great moment in its history. I look forward to working in innovative ways with its historic, modern and contemporary collections and programmes to make Tate Britain ever more vibrant, internationally related, and a magnet for audiences of all ages and backgrounds.”