Art Collections Chemnitz get new general director

Art historian Florence Thurmes will be the new general director of the Chemnitz Art Collections. According to city hall, the 42-year-old was elected by the city council on Wednesday and, as things stand, will take up her new post at the beginning of 2024. She has been head of Dortmund's municipal museum for just over a year and a half. According to the statement, the Luxembourg native convinced with diverse and long-standing professional experience in the management of collections, in curating exhibitions and the conception of participatory formats. In addition, she is already well networked in Saxony, also through her time at the Dresden State Art Collections.

Thurmes studied modern and contemporary art in France, earned a doctorate there and then worked as a curator in her home country and Germany. For her, it is "a unique opportunity" to lead the Kunstsammlungen Chemnitz into the year of the European Capital of Culture 2025, she said. She wants to develop them further with the team and, in doing so, involve the people of Chemnitz and the surrounding area, make better offers for children and young people, and network the museums even more closely with the "rich cultural offerings" of the region. "The Chemnitz art collections have a multitude of treasures of which we can be proud."

Thurmes will thus succeed Frédéric Bußmann, who moved to the helm of the Staatliche Kunsthalle in Karlsruhe in March after five years. The Chemnitz art collections also include the Museum Gunzenhauser and the Carlfriedrich Claus Archive. Cultural Mayor Dagmar Ruscheinsky spoke of an "outstanding appointment." Thurmes already knows the East German and especially the Saxon cultural landscape in detail.