WOUNDS, HAPPINESS AND DISTANCE. Three exhibitions, three cities

During the last decades he has worked consistently on braking up the monopoly of the large art centers by introducing art and artists from what used to be called the “periphery” as well as by introducing new themes and approaches to the way contemporary art practices are presented in museums and biennials. Known as a cultural historian as well as a curator and writer, David Elliott has interests in contemporary and modern art, Russian avant-garde art and the cultures of Central and Eastern Europe, Asia and the non-western world from the late 19^th c. Starting with the early 1980s, he formulated and realized a number of pioneering exhibitions in one of the first programs to integrate non-western culture with contemporary art. He has published a large number of books, articles and catalogues on these subjects. One of his persistent interests in writing is the present-day role and function of the museums of contemporary art.

The list of exhibitions that David Elliott had curated over the years includes: “Art and Power: Europe under the Dictators 1930-1945” (1995); “Organizing Freedom: Nordic Art of the 90s” (2000); “Africa Remix: contemporary art of a continent” (2004); “Ilya and Emilia Kabakov, Where is Our Place?” (2004); “Follow Me! Chinese Art at the Threshold of the New Millennium” (2005); “Tokyo-Berlin / Berlin-Tokyo” (2005); “From Ottoman Empire to Turkish Republic” (2007); “The Quick and the Dead: Rites of passage in art, spirit and life” (2009), etc.