SPK Board of Trustees: Dr Sibylle Hoiman appointed new Director of the Museum of Decorative Arts of the National Museums in Berlin

Press release from 12/06/2022

Dr Sibylle Hoiman will be the new Director of the Museum of Decorative Arts at the National Museums in Berlin. This was decided by the SPK Foundation Board at its meeting on 5 December 2022. The art historian, who currently heads the Architectural Art Archive at the Akademie der Künste in Berlin, succeeds Prof Dr Sabine Thümmler, who retired at the end of May.

Hermann Parzinger says: "I am delighted that, in Sibylle Hoiman, we have been able to appoint a highly experienced and well-connected expert in architecture and design as Director of the Kunstgewerbemuseum. The museum is facing a new direction in terms of content and major changes. I am sure that Ms Hoiman will ensure that the Kunstgewerbemuseum will be a very present and discursive place at the Kulturforum."

Dr Sibylle Hoiman studied art history, American studies and philosophy in Braunschweig, Bonn and Vienna. This was followed by postgraduate studies in heritage conservation in Bamberg. After completing her doctorate at the Technical University of Berlin, she held a scholarship at the German Forum for Art History in Paris and then worked at ETH Zurich. As a long-standing curator at the Bauhaus-Archiv / Museum für Gestaltung, Berlin, she realised numerous exhibitions, was responsible for the redesign of the permanent exhibition and played a key role in the concept for the new building. After holding positions at the Prussian Palaces and Gardens Foundation Berlin-Brandenburg and as director of the Botanical Museum Berlin, she took over the management of the Academy of Arts' Baukunstarchiv in 2020.

Sibylle Hoiman already dealt with the history and significance of museums of applied arts in her master's thesis. Since then, design in its various forms has run through her entire life. With a view to her new role, she states: "In view of the global processes of change, the crises and the discussions about values, a repositioning of the Museum of Decorative Arts is more important than ever. The Museum of Decorative Arts, which I see as an institution that is comprehensively dedicated to the designed world in all its facets, is part of these discourses, must deal with the changing social conditions and face up to the burning questions of our time. Thanks to its outstanding and diverse collections, it is particularly suited to taking on precisely this role of observing mediator.

"The potential for a 'design location' Kulturforum is obvious. I would like the Kunstgewerbemuseum to have an audible voice in the redevelopment of this area, to be recognised in Berlin and beyond. I am very much looking forward to working together with the KGM team and my colleagues at the SMB."

Press photo for download at:
https://www.preussischer-kulturbesitz.de/newsroom/presse/pressebilder/

To overview