Nicolaus Schafhausen

Nicolaus Schafhausen (born 1965 in Düsseldorf, Germany) is a curator.

Since 2006 he is the artistic and financial director of Witte de With[1], Center for Contemporary art in Rotterdam, The Netherlands.

He has been the founding director of the "European Kunsthalle"[2] initiative in Cologne since 2005.

Schafhausen is the curator of the German Pavilion[3] for the 52nd in 2007 and the 53rd in 2009 Venice Biennial

He worked during the 1990s as the artistic director at the Künstlerhaus Stuttgart[4] and he was director of the Frankfurter Kunstverein from 1999 - 2005.

His thematic orientated group exhibitions have in the most part examined art practice in relation to contemporary social-political issues. This approach was highly made visible in projects such as "Populism" at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, CAC in Vilnius, National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design in Oslo and the Frankfurter Kunstverein in 2005. His curated group exhibitions include: "Adorno. The possibility of the impossible" (2003), "Neue Welt", "non-places", "New Heimat" (2001-2002). He curated several one-person exhibitions, including Kai Althoff, Gerard Byrne,Olafur Eliasson, Brian Jungen, Isa Genzken, Liam Gillick, [Billy Apple][5] Mathias Poledna, Stephen Prina and Cerith Wyn Evans.