Gothic: Transmutations of Horror in Late-Twentieth-Century Art

Though born and raised in Germany, Christoph Grunenberg views his appointment at Tate Modern as something of a homecoming. After serving for nearly half a decade as acting director of the ICA in Boston, Grunenberg is returning to the city where he spent seven years studying at the Courtauld Institute of Art. As such he is part of the Tate mini-invasion; long resolutely British, the institution has appointed a pair of non-Brits (the other is an American, Donna De Salvo) to senior posts. "The Tate wants to become a great international museum," Grunenberg says, "and the arrival of me and the others is a small part of that."

At the ICA, Grunenberg's crowning achievement was "Gothic: Transmutations of Horror in Late-Twentieth-Century Art," a show that brought together work in a variety of media and included elements of the Goth subculture. The 200-page catalogue was interdisciplinary as well, gathering essays by novelists Patrick McGrath and Joyce Carol Oates, among others. It's an approach that garners favor at the Tate. "We're making a real commitment to taking a more open approach, looking at art that goes beyond the traditional and exploring media and parallel tendencies in film, architecture, design, etc. and the culture in which they're found."

In his role at Tate Modern, Grunenberg is in charge of acquisitions and will be looking "beyond the classical 'geocratical' limits of Western Europe," especially to South America. He is also responsible for various gallery rooms, both monographic (Rothko, Warhol) and synthetic in focus (the Subversive Object room, for example, includes works by Dali, Manzoni, Samaras, Broodthaers, and Sarah Lucas). Additionally, Grunenberg will work with the Patrons of New Art, a group of 300 backers who buy art for the museum and sponsor the Turner Prize.

All of this makes Grunenberg nothing if not excited. "I'm coming back to my original interests in art. It's great to work with a permanent collection, having concentrated only on cutting edge for the past several years." He adds, "We're redefining the collection, the whole history of twentieth-century art. We're starting with a clean state."