Appointed curator effective April 2026.

Archaeologist, historian, and cultural manager Hermann Parzinger was born in Munich in 1959. After studying archaeology and history in Munich, Saarbrücken, and Ljubljana, he earned his doctorate at LMU Munich, where he subsequently worked as a research assistant until completing his habilitation. From 1990 to 2008, he held various positions at the German Archaeological Institute (DAI) and conducted research in various countries of the Mediterranean region, the Near and Middle East, as well as in Central Asia and Siberia. In particular, as president of the DAI (2003–2008)—an academic and intermediary organization affiliated with the Federal Foreign Office—he was also deeply involved in matters of foreign cultural and educational policy. International cooperation and cultural exchange were central to his entire professional career.

From 2008 to 2025, Hermann Parzinger served as president of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation (SPK), Germany’s largest cultural institution, which comprises 25 museums, libraries, archives, and research institutes and employs over 2,000 people. In this role, he oversaw major, long-term renovation and new construction projects, particularly for the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin and the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin. He was closely involved in the development of the Humboldt Forum from the very beginning, especially during his tenure as one of its three founding directors from 2015 to 2018. He played a key role in shaping the SPK’s restitution policy regarding Nazi-looted art, colonial contexts, human remains, etc. Through restitutions, residency programs, and joint research and co-productions with partners from countries of origin and communities of origin, a productive exchange with countries and cultures of the Global South emerged.

Hermann Parzinger is a member of numerous academies of sciences worldwide and has received several honorary doctorates and academic awards. In 2011, he was admitted to the Order of Merit for Science and the Arts, the highest honor for scientists and artists in Germany; he has served as Chancellor of the Order since 2021. During his active career, he served on numerous advisory boards, foundation boards, and boards of trustees for German and international cultural institutions, including the Art and Exhibition Hall of the Federal Republic of Germany (Bonn), the Smithsonian Institution (Washington), the Musée des Civilisations de L’Europe et de la Méditerranée (Marseille), the Hypo Cultural Foundation (Munich), the Bucerius Art Forum (Hamburg), and the Berlin Philharmonic Foundation.

Since 2013, Hermann Parzinger has also been volunteering in various roles at Europa Nostra—an NGO dedicated to coordinating and strengthening civil society engagement in the cultural sector—to promote culture and cultural heritage at the European level. Since 2018, he has served as Executive President of Europa Nostra, a volunteer role he has intensified since his retirement from the SPK due to age. Through close collaboration with the European Commission, the Council of Europe, and the European Parliament, Europa Nostra has become a key player in cultural and cultural heritage policy at the European level.

Appointed curator from April 1, 2022, to March 31, 2024; appointment extended by two years to March 31, 2026.

Up to May 2021, Leonie Baumann was president of weißensee kunsthochschule berlin. Her professional career started in Osnabrück in 1980, where she established a network between the university and the city of Osnabrück. Since 1985, she is working in Berlin in various cultural fields: Initially, she was director and publisher for art in public in Berlin. From 1991 to early 2011, she was director of the neue Gesellschaft für Bildende Kunst (nGbK). During all these years, she had been chairwoman of various associations. At the end of the 1980s up to the beginning 1990s she could successfully receive the institutional funding for the society of Aktives Museum - Faschismus und Widerstand in Berlin. She was chairwoman of the advisory board for arts of the first International Women’s University in Hannover/ifu, which took place in the year of 2000 parallel to EXPO. Many years she was responsible for the umbrella organization of art associations in Germany (Arbeitsgemeinschaft Deutscher Kunstvereine - ADKV) and was co-speaker of the Council for the Arts in Berlin (Rat für die Künste). When Leonie Baumann started at weißensee kunsthochschule berlin she was appointed for the Advisory Board for Art in Public for the Governing Mayor of Berlin for four years. She was member of the Advisory Board Urbane Künste Ruhr, the Berlin Project Fund Arts Education and from July 2022 she will be member of the Expert Advisory Board of Art in Architecture at the Federal Ministry for Housing, Urban Development and Building. In 2011, she co-founded the initiative Stadt Neudenken, which led to a re-orientation of Berlin’s real estate policy.