Dr. Dorothée Bauerle-Willert
The international artists‘ committee IKG mourns the death of Dorothée Bauerle-Willert, our President and long-time Executive Director. She passed away on November 15th, 2022, in Montegrotto, Italy, at the age of 71.
Dorothée Bauerle-Willert studied Art History and Literatures. She wrote her doctoral thesis on Aby Warburg’s pictorial atlas ‘Mnemosyne’. In the 1980s, her many professional activities included an assistance at the Staatliche Kunsthalle Baden-Baden, the direction of the Gesellschaft für aktuelle Kunst in Bremen, and her engagement as deputy director of the Ulm Museum. From 1990 to 2007, she was living abroad, and held visiting professorships in Asunción/Paraguay, Montevideo/Uruguay, Tallinn/Estonia, and in Belgrade/Serbia.
From 2009 to 2019, Dorothée Bauerle-Willert was production dramaturge at the Vorarlberger Landestheater in Bregenz. Her return to Berlin in 2007 was followed by teaching positions at numerous universities: at the HfBK Dresden University of Fine Arts, the University of Cologne, and the University of Art and Design Burg Giebichenstein Halle.
Dorothée Bauerle-Willert actively promoted cultural policy issues in the German Culture Council and its expert committees. Her great contributions to discussions in the German Arts Council, as well as in the Board of Trustees of the Stiftung KunstFonds, were also extremely valued.
We who had the privilege to know her, cherished Dorothée’s sensitive and passionate character. We admired her gifts as an exceptional speaker, brilliant author, and dedicated teacher.
Dorothée Bauerle-Willert was a true cosmopolitan, and during her presidency and as a long-time executive director of the IKG, she enthusiastically advocated tolerance and understanding across borders. Her commitment was entirely for the freedom of art.
We will grievously miss Dorothée Bauerle-Willert, deeply grateful for all that she generously shared with us. We will always remember her for what she was like: a nonpareil personality, open at heart and in spirit, full of life, enthusiastic, inspiring, and driven by a seemingly inexhaustible energy.
The International Artists Forum is shocked by Russia’s brutal attack on Ukraine. Our solidarity is with the people who are fighting for peace, freedom of art, democracy and human rights in Ukraine and Russia.
The war, which never was really gone, is now back in the middle of Europe. The always fragile world order is threatened in its foundations. The unthinkable has now actually happened. Let us hope with Ukraine and all people at her side that the war can be defeated as soon as possible, that death, destruction and the immeasurable suffering may end.
The International Artists Forum IKG was initiated by well-known artists like Joseph Beuys, Jochen Gerz, Gotthard Graubner, Klaus Staeck and others, and founded 1976 in Cologne. It was and is an association of artists, curators, critics working on the field of the visual arts. As a parallel to the Pen-Club the IKG is engaged for freedom of the art, of information and press, for the right of cultural self-determination, for tolerance and cultural diversity. The IKG is member of the German Kunstrat, an advisory board for German cultural affairs and member of the German Kulturrat and of the foundation board of the foundation Kunstfonds.
The IKG has 247 members from Argentinien, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Belarusm, Canada, Czech Republic, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Great Britain, Hungary, Italy, Israel, Japan, Poland, Portugal, Serbia, Slovakia, Sweden, Switzerland, The Netherlands, United States of America.