Julia Reich will become the artistic director of the Dortmunder Kunstverein on 1 December 2026, the institution has announced. Her programme for the venerable German art association is scheduled to begin in spring 2027. Reich, an art historian by training, succeeds into a role the board describes as carrying an independent profile that is respected well beyond the region. Reich studied art history at Heinrich-Heine-Universitat Dusseldorf, specialising in media and cultural studies as well as philosophy. From 2016 to 2019 she worked there as a research associate at the Institute of Art History, before writing her doctoral thesis on long-duration performances and their documentation. She has since worked across curatorial and scholarly contexts with museums, collections and off-space projects. She is currently active at WESTSTERN, a foundation and platform that advocates for art associations across North Rhine-Westphalia, and has served since 2024 as a scholarly member of the Dusseldorf art commission. Board chairwoman Marion Edelhoff said Reich was taking responsibility for an art association that had built an independent and internationally regarded profile over many years, adding that she would honour what came before while setting new impulses for the future. Reich said she was delighted to build on the open and experimental attitude of the Dortmunder Kunstverein and to further strengthen its long-established international networks. She described the history of Dortmund and the diverse everyday realities of the city as starting points for developing diversity-conscious, cross-media lines of inquiry that reach beyond their local roots into broader social and international contexts. At the centre of her approach, she said, stands the connection between contemporary art's reflection of the present, interdisciplinary discourse and lively dialogue.