Ann Demeester

Foto © Franca Candrian, Kunsthaus Zürich

Ann Demeester was born in Bruges, Belgium in 1975 and has been Director of the Kunsthaus Zürich, Switzerland’s largest art museum, since October 2022.

From 2014 to February 2022 she was Director of the Frans Hals Museum in the Dutch city of Haarlem, a museum of Old Masters, modern and contemporary art. Prior to that, she spent eight years as head of de Appel arts centre, a contemporary arts and performance centre in Amsterdam renowned for training curators under its Curatorial Programme.

Ann Demeester studied literature and linguistics (English/Dutch/Norwegian) and worked as an art critic for national newspapers in her home country. She was assistant to Jan Hoet and a curator at the Municipal Museum of Contemporary Art (SMAK) in Ghent, Belgium and MARTa in Herford, Germany.

Ann Demeester was co-curator of the Tirana Biennale in 2003 and produced exhibitions with artists including Salla Tykka, Zarina Bhimji, Mika Rottenberg, Nina Yuen, Bjarne Melgaard, Luc Tuymans and Michael Borremans. In 2009, she curated the Baltic Triennial in Vilnius together with Kestutis Kuizinas.

Until 2022, Ann Demeester was Professor of Art and Culture at the Radboud University Nijmegen. Her teaching focused on the concept of the ‘transhistorical museum’, in which artworks, objects and ideas from various eras and periods enter into dialogue.

In the Netherlands, Ann Demeester has been a respected ambassador for the fine arts and museums who maintains an active dialogue with politicians, the media and the general public. In 2022, she was honoured with the title of Officer of the Order of Orange-Nassau by the Royal House of the Netherlands in recognition of her services.

Ann Demeester is married and lives with her husband and two children in the city of Zurich.