As director of the Nationalgalerie, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, with responsibility for the Alte Nationalgalerie, Neue Nationalgalerie and Hamburger Bahnhof, as well as the Berggruen Museum, the Sammlung Scharf-Gerstenberg and the Friedrichswerdersche Kirche, Kittelmann is the institutional voice of Germany. The estimated €101 million renovation of the Neue Nationalgalerie started this year, and the museum is projected to be closed for four years. Meanwhile, a new £80m, 14,700sqm modern art institution is planned for a site next door. You may be forgiven for asking whether, with all these capital projects, Kittelmann still has time to think about art. He does: projects in 2015 have included putting together an Andreas Gursky show at the Museum Frieder Burda in Baden-Baden, the Impressionism–Expressionism show at the Alte Nationalgalerie and a Mary Heilmann and David Reed show at the Hamburger Bahnhof: ‘He makes art out of other people’s art because his curatorial moves are really things that we wouldn’t have thought of,’ said Heilmann.