In and Out of the Museum: Photographs by Klaus Ottmann, 1977–2026 — Klaus Ottmann

On the occasion of the publication of the first two volumes of his collected writings on art, we are extremely pleased to present an exhibition of photographs by KLAUS OTTMANN.

Thought Through My Eyes and In and Out of the Museum include essays, reviews, and interviews that appeared in a variety of publications between 1977 and 2012 as well as Ottmann's intimate portraits of many of the artists about whom he has written. The exhibition is the first public presentation of Ottmann's photographs since 1978 when he participated in Photographien, alongside Sigmar Polke, Rainer Fetting, Salomé, Dorothy Iannone, Jürgen Klauke, and others, at the Galerie am Moritzplatz in Berlin.

The approximately fifty works on view include both posed and candid images of artists made during performances and exhibitions, in museums, studios, and other locations. Among the works in the exhibition are portraits of JANINE ANTONI, JENNIFER BARTLETT, PATTY CHANG, GEORGE CONDO, AGNES DENES, RACKSTRAW DOWNES, RAINER FETTING, ROBERT GROSVENOR, CRISTINA IGLESIAS, JESPER JUST, MARY KELLY, ANSELM KIEFER, WOLFGANG LAIB, JONATHAN MEESE, WANGECHI MUTU CATHERINE OPIE, CHARLES ROSS, SALOMÉ, TOKIHIRO SATŌ, JOAN SNYDER, STURTEVANT, HIROSHI SUGIMOTO, and KUNIÉ SUGIURA.

Born in Germany in 1954, KLAUS OTTMANN arrived in New York from Berlin in 1983. He quickly became known as a leading art critic, a role that led to a curatorial career with positions at Wesleyan University, the American Federation of the Arts, the Parrish Art Museum, and from 2010 to 2022 at The Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C., where served as the Director of the Center for the Study of Modern Art and Curator at Large and later as Deputy Director of Academic Affairs and Chief Curator.

Ottmann has written extensively on a wide range of artists from Michelangelo, Nicolas Poussin, and Mark Rothko to Karel Appel, Jennifer Bartlett, James Brooks, James Lee Byars, George Condo, Rackstraw Downes, Yves Klein, Wolfgang Laib, Giorgio Morandi, Mark Morrisroe, Wangechi Mutu, Alfonso Ossorio, Fairfield Porter, Charles Ross, Arlene Shechet, and Hiroshi Sugimoto. He has organized more than sixty international exhibitions, including the 2006 SITE Santa Fe Biennial.

He is currently working as an independent curator, writer, and translator, and holds the title of Chief Curator Emeritus of The Phillips Collection. Ottmann is also the publisher and editor of Spring Publications, a small press specializing in books on psychology, philosophy, religion, the history of ideas, mythology, classics, comparative literature, art, and ecology.

Klaus Ottmann studied philosophy and art history at the Freie Universität in Berlin and received a PhD in philosophy and media communication from the European Graduate School in 2002. In 2016, he was conferred the insignia of Chevalier of France’s Order of Arts and Letters by the French ministry of culture and communication. In 2023, he received the Extraordinary Contribution to The Phillips Collection Award and was among the honorees that year at the Museum's Gala.

The third volume of Ottmann’s writings, The Truth Seen from Behind, which includes essays on art and philosophy written between 2010 and 2026, will be published in 2027.

Klaus Ottmann and Leslie Tonkonow met in the East Village in 1986. They have been married since 1988.