Daniel Birnbaum is the director of the Moderna Museet

Moderna Museet

Moderna museet, the Museum of Modern Art, Stockholm, Sweden, is a state museum located on the island of Skeppsholmen in central Stockholm, that was first opened in 1958. Its first manager was Pontus Hultén...

, the museum of modern art in Stockholm.

Life and career

Birnbaum studied at the Stockholm University

Stockholm University

Stockholm University is a state university in Stockholm, Sweden. It has over 28,000 students at four faculties, making it one of the largest universities in Scandinavia. The institution is also frequently regarded as one of the top 100 universities in the world...

, the Freie Universität Berlin and Columbia University

Columbia University

Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...

 in New York. He obtained a Ph.D. from the Stockholm University in 1998. In 1998, he completed his doctorate in philosophy at the Stockholm University. Subsequently he became director of the Swedish “International Artists Studio Program” (IASPIS), a position he held well into the year 2000. Between 2001 and 2010, Birnbaum held the position of Rector at the Städelschule

Städelschule

Städelschule, Staatliche Hochschule für Bildende Künste, is a contemporary fine arts academy in Frankfurt am Main, Germany.- History :The Städelschule was established by a foundation set up by the Frankfurt merchant Johann Friedrich Städel in 1817...

 fine arts academy in Frankfurt am Main in Germany. During that time, he also served as director of Portikus

Portikus

Portikus is an exhibition hall for contemporary art in Frankfurt am Main, originally founded in 1987 through the initiation of Kasper König, one of the most influential living curators of contemporary art. It's name derives from the surviving portico of the Stadtbibliothek from 1825 that was...

, an exhibition space at the Staedelschule since 1987. In 2008, he was a member of the Turner Prize

Turner Prize

The Turner Prize, named after the painter J. M. W. Turner, is an annual prize presented to a British visual artist under the age of 50. Awarding the prize is organised by the Tate gallery and staged at Tate Britain. Since its beginnings in 1984 it has become the United Kingdom's most publicised...

 jury.

Publications

In 2007 Birnbaum published ‘Teaching Art: Staedelschule Frankfurt am Main’ and has subsequently written on Olafur Eliasson

Olafur Eliasson

Olafur Eliasson is a Danish-Icelandic artist known for sculptures and large-scale installation art employing elemental materials such as light, water, and air temperature to enhance the viewer’s experience. In 1995 he established Studio Olafur Eliasson in Berlin, a laboratory for spatial research...

, Pierre Huyghe

Pierre Huyghe

Pierre Huyghe is a French artist who works in a variety of media from film and video to public interventions. He won the Hugo Boss Prize from the Guggenheim Museum in 2002.-Biography:...

, Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster

Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster

Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster, born in 1965 in Strasbourg, is a French artist working with video and installations. Gonzalez-Foerster lives and works in Paris and Rio de Janeiro. She won the Marcel Duchamp Prize in 2002.-Exhibitions:...

, Wolfgang Tillmans

Wolfgang Tillmans

Wolfgang Tillmans is a German Fine-art photographer and artist. His comprehensive and diverse body of work is distinguished by observation of his surroundings and an ongoing investigation of the photographic medium’s foundations. In 2000, Tillmans was the first photographer and also the first...

, Cerith Wyn Evans

Cerith Wyn Evans

Cerith Wyn Evans is a Welsh conceptual artist, sculptor and film-maker.After studying at Saint Martin's School of Art and the Royal College of Art Wyn Evans worked as an assistant to Derek Jarman and his early experimental film work in the 1980s often concentrated on dancers including...

 and Paul Chan

Paul Chan

Paul Chan Mo Po, MH, JP is the member of the Legislative Council of Hong Kong . He is an accountant and the former President of the Hong Kong Institute of Certified Public Accountants . He holds a BBA and a MBA degree from the Chinese University of Hong Kong...

. His latest book is ‘Under Pressure’ (Frankfurt 2008). In addition to articles published in international art magazines such as Artforum

Artforum

Artforum is an international monthly magazine specializing in contemporary art.-Publication:The magazine is published ten times a year, September through May, along with an annual summer issue...

 and Frieze

Frieze

thumb|267px|Frieze of the [[Tower of the Winds]], AthensIn architecture the frieze is the wide central section part of an entablature and may be plain in the Ionic or Doric order, or decorated with bas-reliefs. Even when neither columns nor pilasters are expressed, on an astylar wall it lies upon...

, he also produced a series of academic texts and translations on Novalis, Edmund Husserl, Martin Heidegger, Gottlob Frege, Ludwig Wittgenstein

Ludwig Wittgenstein

Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein was an Austrian philosopher who worked primarily in logic, the philosophy of mathematics, the philosophy of mind, and the philosophy of language. He was professor in philosophy at the University of Cambridge from 1939 until 1947...

, Jacques Derrida

Jacques Derrida

Jacques Derrida was a French philosopher, born in French Algeria. He developed the critical theory known as deconstruction and his work has been labeled as post-structuralism and associated with postmodern philosophy...

 and Thomas Bernhard

Thomas Bernhard

Thomas Bernhard was an Austrian novelist, playwright and poet. Bernhard, whose body of work has been called "the most significant literary achievement since World War II," is widely considered to be one of the most important German-speaking authors of the postwar era.- Life :Thomas Bernhard was...

.

Curator career

Birnbaum was co-curator of the 50th Venice Biennale

Venice Biennale

The Venice Biennale is a major contemporary art exhibition that takes place once every two years in Venice, Italy. The Venice Film Festival is part of it. So too is the Venice Biennale of Architecture, which is held in even years...

 (2003) as well as the director of the 53rd Venice Biennale

Venice Biennale

The Venice Biennale is a major contemporary art exhibition that takes place once every two years in Venice, Italy. The Venice Film Festival is part of it. So too is the Venice Biennale of Architecture, which is held in even years...

 (2009).
He has been he curator of institutions and exhibitions in many countries, for which he has produced catalogue entries:

• 2008, he was co-curator of the Triennial of Yokohama and curator of the 2nd Triennial of Turin.
• 2006 and 2007, he was co-curator of Airs de Paris at the Centre Pompidou, of Uncertain States of America (with Hans Ulrich Obrist) at Bard College of London’s Serpentine Gallery
  Serpentine Gallery
  The Serpentine Gallery is an art gallery in Kensington Gardens, Hyde Park, central London. It focuses on modern and contemporary art. The exhibitions, architecture, education and public programmes attract approximately 750,000 visitors a year...
  
  , and of the 2nd Biennial of Moscow.
• 2005, co-curator of the 1st Biennial of Moscow
• 2003, co-curator of the international section of the 50th Biennale di Venezia International Art Exhibition.
• 2004-present, associate curator of the Magasin 3 exhibition space in Stockholm.
• 2001-present, member of the board of Manifesta in Amsterdam.