Sabine Breitwieser (born April 6, 1962 in Wels, Austria) is an Austrian curator, art manager and publicist.
Life
After studying law in Linz, Breitwieser obtained her doctorate in law at the University of Vienna. She was initially coordinator and curator in 1988 and from 1991 to 2007 the first artistic director on the board of the Generali Foundation (founding director). In developing the initial plans for a collection of Austrian sculpture, she expanded the Generali Foundation's art collection with a focus on conceptual and critical art. This collection, as well as the exhibitions it has shown, have met with international acclaim.
In 2003 and 2004 she was one of the curators of the International Liverpool Biennial, and from 2003 to 2008 she was a member of the University Council of the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna. In 2007, Breitwieser became Secretary and Treasurer of CIMAM (International Committee for Museums and Collections of Modern Art).
She was appointed the chief curator of media and performance art at MoMA in Manhattan in May 2010, holding the role until 2013. In the same year she completed the second part of her two-year project Utopia and Monument for the Styrian Autumn, which she had begun the previous year. From 2013 to 2018, she was the director of the Museum der Moderne Salzburg (MdMS). In 2014, as part of her work as director, she agreed to a partnership with Generali and the relocation of the collection she had built up from Vienna to MdMS. Breitwieser also works as a freelance curator, lecturer and author on contemporary art.
She co-organized a show on German sculptor Isa Genzken in 2013, the first "comprehensive Genzken exhibition in an American museum." In 2015, she organized "Carole Schneemann: Kinetic Painting" for the Museum der Moderne Salzburg, which traveled to MoMA PS1 in 2017 and 2018. In 2019 and 2020, she curated a show at the Muzeum Susch about Carolee Schneeman.
Awards
2012 Yoko Ono Lennon Courage Award for the Arts
Exhibitions (selection)
MdMS - Museum der Moderne Salzburg
2018 Anna Boghiguian
2018 Marisa Merz – Der Himmel ist ein weiter Raum
2018 30 Jahre Generali Foundation
2017 Neues Salzburg
2017 Folklore
2017 William Kentridge. Thick Time
2017 Foto Kinetik
2016 Pichler. Radikal
2016 Raymond Pettibon
2016 Räume schaffen. Aus den Sammlungen
2016 Anti:modern. Salzburg in mitten von Europa zwischen Tradition und Erneuerung 2016 Kunst-Musik-Tanz. Staging the Derra de Moroda Dance Archives 2015 Carolee Schneemann. Kinetische Malerei 2015 E.A.T. Experiments in Arts and Technology 2015 Wirkliches Leben? Ein Panorama der Sammlungen 2015 Andrea Fraser 2014 Isa Genzken. Neue Werke 2014 Proudly Presenting. Sammlung Generali Foundation 2014 Simone Forti. Mit dem Körper denken 2014 Kunst/Geschichten 2014 Ana Mendieta. Traces
MoMA – The Museum of Modern Art, New York
2013 Isaac Julien. Ten Thousand Waves
2013 Isa Genzken. Retrospective
2012 Christian Marclay. The Clock
2012 Performing Histories
2012 MoMA Media Lounge mit Renée Green
2012 Words in the world
2012 9 Scripts from a Nation at War
2011 Combatant Status Review Tribunals
2011 Harun Farocki: Images of War (at a Distance) 2011 Grand Openings