About

​

Anke Therese Schulz is a German-born, American art historian, curator, sociologist and critic currently based in Berlin. Educated at the Courtauld Institute of Art (MA History of Modern and Contemporary Art, with merit, 2017), the University of the Arts Berlin (Professional Certificate in Exhibition Curating, 2017), the University of California San Francisco (Ph.D Sociology, 2005), and Columbia University (MA Sociomedical Sciences, 2005), Anke focuses her writing and curatorial activities on countercultural art movements, and their relationship to society. Anke’s master’s thesis for the Courtauld Institute of Art, entitled “‘Visions which life has withheld from us’: The experimental film movement in the German Democratic Republic (GDR): 1976-89,” explored dissident aesthetics in underground East German cinema during the Cold War, specifically under the Erich Honecker regime until the fall of the Berlin Wall on November 11, 1989.

 

A writer and critic, Anke publishes film and exhibition reviews that have appeared in print, and/or online, in The Courtauldian, ArtVersed, and This is Tomorrow Contemporary Art Magazine. She also writes scholarly essays: her review of the Guerrilla Girls’ 1993 political art poster, “You’re not seeing the whole picture,” was featured in an exhibition catalogue published by the The Feminist Archive (FFBIZ) Berlin. Anke also conceptualises and curates exhibitions: her first solo-curated exhibition - “Half the World Belongs to Us!” - was held at the Alpha Nova & Galerie Futura in Berlin. For this show, thirty-two new artworks were commissioned from an international group of women artist-activists to commemorate International Women’s Day on March 8, 2019.

 

          Anke also works as a museum educator and exhibition tour guide. At the Berlinische Galerie Museum of Modern Art in Berlin, she conducted English- and German-language tours of the museum’s permanent collection and special exhibitions, including surveys of the Weimar-era November Group (November Gruppe), the German-Jewish painter, Lotte Laserstein, and the Bauhaus Archive. In 2020, Anke appeared on the BBC2 television series, “Great Continental Railway Journeys.” In the episode entitled “Berlin to Stuttgart” (Series 7, Episode 3), Anke discusses the significance of George Grosz´ painting, “Self-Portrait as a Warner” (1927), and describes how Grosz painted this work in the style of New Objectivity (Neue Sachlichkeit) to articulate his political views, and warn the public about the rise of the Nazism in Weimar Germany.

 

          Board membership at non-profit arts organisations is another important aspect of Anke’s professional practice. She has previously served on the Board of Directors at the Santa Cruz Art League, a community-based arts, education, and exhibition space in Santa Cruz, California, where she assisted with organisational programming and fundraising campaigns. Anke also held the role of arts programming liaison for the Northern California (NorCal) chapter of the Columbia University Alumni Association board, and the national Columbia University Arts Association Network in New York City, for whom she organised arts-related events for Columbia University alumni living throughout the San Francisco Bay Area.

​