Federal Museums

Fatima Hellberg becomes new Mumok director

Fatima Hellberg will become the new Mumok director in fall 2025

(Bild: BMKÖS/HBF/Lechner)

In October 2025, the young Swede Fatima Hellberg, born in 1986, will take over from Karola Kraus as artistic director of Mumok.

Mumok is currently "closed" - renovations until June 6. Time enough for State Secretary Andrea Mayer to announce the new appointments to the artistic and commercial Mumok management teams: From fall 2025, Fatima Hellberg will succeed Karola Kraus as General Director, who did not wish to extend her term. Cornelia Lamprechter will continue to manage the commercial agendas - and is therefore entering her third term of office in the post, which was advertised for five years.

The new director

Fatima Hellberg studied Visual Cultures and Art History at Oxford University and Curating Contemporary Art at the Royal College of Art in London. She has curated exhibitions and projects at the Tate Modern in London, the CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts, San Francisco, the Malmö Konsthall and the Museion in Bolzano, among others.

According to ministry documents, she "worked in London as a curator at Cubitt and at Electra, a contemporary art organization with a long-standing commitment to gender and feminism".

From 2015-19 she was Artistic Director at Künstlerhaus Stuttgart.

She has been Director of the Bonner Kunstverein since 2019.

"Hellberg's upcoming projects include exhibitions at the Camden Art Center, London, and Haus Mödrath - Räume für Kunst, Kerpen," it said.

17 women and seven men, 16 of them foreign nationals, had applied for the position of artistic director. According to Mayer, an "internationally well-connected, incredibly accomplished and creative leader" was found in Hellberg. 
Fatima Hellberg was born in Sweden in 1986, is a curator and has been Director of the Bonner Kunstverein since 2019. She has never managed a museum. She wants to turn Mumok into a "living museum" and "create new narratives and connections" and "radiate generosity, openness and warmth towards the public".

Fatima Hellberg, State Secretary for Art and Culture Andrea Mayer, Cornelia Lamprechter and current General Director Karola Kraus (from left to right)

(Bild: BMKÖS/HBF/Lechner)

Comment: Beautiful visions will hopefully come true ...
Young, female, international were probably the political guidelines. Fatima Hellberg fits the bill perfectly. She made a likeable, open impression when she was introduced. After curating exhibitions and managing an art association, the not-yet-forty-year-old is now taking the bold leap to head Austria's largest museum of modern art. She clearly has big plans: Buzzwords such as "building bridges", "lifeness", "opening up", "openness" "warmth" danced through the air of her warmly but nebulously presented ideas. How well she knows the Mumok collection was not revealed. And being director is much more than just curating exhibitions. May she bring her visions to the ground of museum reality!