Fatima Hellberg, currently serving as director of Bonn’s Kunstverein, has been appointed as the new general director of Mumok, Vienna’s museum of modern art. She will take on her new role in October 2025, succeeding to Karola Kraus, who has run the museum for 15 years.
The appointment was announced by Andrea Mayer, Austria’s state secretary for arts and culture, who praised Hellberg as ‘an internationally well-connected, incredibly accomplished and creative leader for mumok’. In parallel to her role at Bonner Kunstverein, Hellberg has curated shows at Tate Modern and the ICA in London, San Francisco’s CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts and Malmö Konsthall. Prior to her current role, Hellberg was artistic director of Künstlerhaus Stuttgart (2015–19), and served as curator at Cubitt, London, and Electra, a contemporary arts organisation with a longstanding dedication to gender and feminism, also based in London. Forthcoming projects include exhibitions at Camden Art Centre, London, and Haus Mödrath, Kerpen.
‘Ms Hellberg has presented an outstanding concept with very clever approaches and a lot of esprit,’ Mayer added. ‘She represents a new departure, a new and different way of thinking about museums, cooperation and diversity, but also a keen sense of history and the strength of the Mumok collection.’
