Team
Jelena Kaludjerović
Born in Belgrade, former Yugoslavia. Jelena studied German Literature and Theater and Film Studies at the University of Vienna. Between 2008 and 2014, she was active as a literary translator and worked at the ERSTE Foundation as coordinator of numerous international art, cultural and social projects in Central and Southeastern Europe. As co-director of the association BLOCKFREI between 2015 and 2018, she designed and organised art and cultural projects, most notably “Curators’ Agenda,” a residency program for international, emerging curators and “Critics’ Agenda 2017,” for international art critics (next edition of this program was launched in November 2018 by Verein K under the name “Visiting Critics VIENNA 2018”). In 2017, Jelena co-founded the association Verein K.
Dejan Kaludjerović
Born in Belgrade, former Yugoslavia. Dejan studied at the Academy of Applied Arts in Vienna and gained an MA in visual arts at the Academy of Fine Arts in Belgrade in 2004. He has exhibited internationally at numerous solo and group shows in Europe, USA, Australia and Asia. In 2017, Dejan co-founded the association Verein K.
dejankaludjerovic.net
Klaus Speidel
Born in Reutlingen, Germany. Klaus is philosopher, art critic and curator. Klaus studied philosophy and art history at the University of Munich and the École normale supérieure in Paris. In 2013, he completed his PhD in Philosophy at the Sorbonne with a dissertation on the possibilities and modalities of narration in single pictures. Between October 2015 and January 2018, he was the head of the post-doctoral research project “Towards an Experimental Narratology of the Image” at the Laboratory for Cognitive Research in Art History (CreA) at the University of Vienna. Klaus curated several group and solo shows and was awarded the AICA France Prize for Art Criticism. He regularly contributes to monographs and catalogues, e.g. for the Centre Pompidou in Paris, the Schirn Kunsthalle in Frankfurt, and the mumok in Vienna and also writes criticism and theory for Spike and artpress. In 2017, Klaus co-founded the association Verein K.
Advisory Board
Nuit Banai is art historian and critic, Professor of Contemporary Art in the Department of Art History at the University of Vienna; Her book on Yves Klein was published in the ‚Critical Lives‘ series by Reaktion in London in 2014 and she is currently at work on a book project titled “Imagining Europe between Nation State and Border State: Public Disorder and the Search for a Universal Subject,” which examines the aesthetic mediation of ‚Europe‘ from the post-war years to the present. She has also contributed numerous catalogue texts to accompany international exhibitions at, among others, the Centre Georges Pompidou, Musée nationale de la villle de Paris, Barbican Centre, Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt, Bronx Museum of the Arts, Artists Space, Americas Society, museum moderner kunst stiftung ludwig wien, and Documenta. She is a regular contributor to Artforum International and Texte zur Kunst and a Contributing Editor at Art Papers.
Branka Benčić is a curator and art historian with research, writing and curatorial interests in contemporary art, exhibiting film and video, trajectories of avantgarde and conceptual art, curatorial practices and exhibition histories, working between different formats and structures. She is interested in institutional and artistic imagination, politics of memory, practices of care and repair. Currently, she is the director of MMSU / MMCA Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Rijeka, Croatia. She was the commissioner and curator of the Croatian Pavilion at 57th Venice Biennale (Horizon of Expectations with Tina Gverovic and Marko Tadić, 2017) and co-curated the Croatian Pavilion at 16th Venice Architecture Biennale (2018). She co-founded and served as artistic director at Apoteka – space of contemporary art, and Cinemaniac > Think Film project at Pula Film Festival. She curated an ongoing screening program Artist Cinema at MSU Museum of Contemporary Art in Zagreb (2012 – 2020). She has curated solo and group exhibitions and film screenings in Croatia and internationally. Selected exhibitions include: Sanja Iveković video retrospective (2021), Raffaella Crispino (2022) at MMSU; Babette Mangolte (2008), Goran Trbuljak (2019) at Cinemaniac Think Film; Petra Feriancova (2019), David Maljkovic (2020) at Apoteka, Damir Očko (2019), CUT – collage in contemporary art (2018) at MSU Museum of Contemporary Art Zagreb, Solidarity as Distruption theme program at International Short Film festival Oberhausen (2021, 2022). She has been jury member at various international events in the framework of contemporary art and film such as Furla Award, EMAF European media art festival, Oberhausen Fim festival; she attended international study programs and residencies. She has published in exhibition catalogues, books and journals and lectured on contemporary art.
Zoran Erić is art historian, curator and lecturer. He holds a Ph.D. from the Faculty of Media, Bauhaus University in Weimar. He holds the position of the Chief Curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Belgrade. His focus is on theoretical research, workshops and international projects which deal with issues derived from the meeting points of urban geography, spatial-cultural discourse, and theory of radical democracy. His curatorial practice examines the position of artists in the public domain, the underlying problems they confront while reflecting the particular context. Erić is particularly interested in the production and reproduction of different contextual layers of social space and the role artists can play in this. He lives and works in Belgrade.
Séamus Kealy is currently Director of Oakville Galleries in Canada. From 2014 to 2023 he was Director of the Salzburger Kunstverein in Austria. From 2008 to 2013, he was Director of The Model, Sligo, Ireland, which he led through a major redevelopment. From 2005 to 2008, he was Curator at the Blackwood Gallery, University of Toronto, Canada. He has lectured at universities world-wide including as Visiting Lecturer for the Higher Institute for Visual Arts in Ghent, Belgium. He has held artist and curatorial residencies in Canada, Chile, Ireland, Austria, and France. Awards and acknowledgements include the „Top Exhibition in Austria” in 2014 (Punctum), „Number Four (of Top Ten) Exhibition in Austria” in 2016, (The People’s Cinema); both by Profil Magazin, the Curatorial Writing Award in 2007 by the Ontario Association of Art Galleries, “Number Five (of Top Ten) Exhibitions of 2007 (Canada),” (Unterspiel), by Canadian Art Magazine, as well as finalist for the Lexmark Pan-European Painting Prize (2004), and finalist for the RBC National Painting Award in Canada (2002). In 2018 he was International Juror for Canada’s Sobey Art Award. He studied Fine Arts (BFA), including photography under Jeff Wall, and later Art History: Curatorial Studies (MA) at the University of British Columbia.
Partners
Verein K is an independent arts and cultural organization from Vienna, founded in 2017. Verein K focuses on projects in the field of contemporary art and culture connecting diverse cultural and social interests: critical approaches to contemporary art, creating curatorial platforms as well as enabling innovative cultural practices including diverse social groups.