Transformation process started: art KARLSRUHE in future with proven and new management functions
After the twentieth edition of art KARLSRUHE - Classical Modern and Contemporary Art - in 2023, the curator and founder of the fair, Ewald Karl Schrade, will hand over the baton of managing this fair to proven and new hands
Until that time, Ewald Karl Schrade and Britta Wirtz, the managing director of Messe Karlsruhe, will jointly shape the transformation process that has now been initiated and will redefine the future management of the art fair.
Since 2004, Ewald Karl Schrade has led art KARLSRUHE as curator and project manager and helped the fair to achieve high recognition and acceptance in the art market. Already in 2017, Olga Blaß took on the role of project manager for the event in close coordination with the curator. The future concept, which has now been worked out together, is to successively place Ewald Karl Schrade's previous activities in the hands of a team consisting of external artistic management and a management from Messe Karlsruhe positioned at eye level.
After art KARLSRUHE 2022, the search for an external artistic director will begin. After the 2023 event, this person will complement the Messe Karlsruhe team with an experienced view of what is happening on the external market.
Britta Wirtz: "Messe Karlsruhe and curator Ewald Karl Schrade see this new distribution of roles as a guarantee that the high level of competence built up by the Messe Karlsruhe team over the past twenty years will be used profitably. At the same time, the explicit orientation towards the needs of all our customers as a decisive criterion for the success of trade fairs will be continued."
Ewald Karl Schrade, who has always been a gallery owner and trade fair organiser, will devote more of his passion for art and its advancement to his two galleries in Schloß Mochental and Karlsruhe after the 2023 fair, and will remain an exhibiting gallery owner at art KARLSRUHE.
Ewald Karl Schrade: "I am looking forward to getting the process that has now been initiated off to a good start together with Managing Director Britta Wirtz, Project Manager Olga Blaß and the team at Messe Karlsruhe. After my last fair as curator, I will experience art KARLSRUHE from a different perspective and will certainly also enjoy only looking after my own stand without the responsibility for the organisational processes."
