Necmi Sönmez


Necmi Sönmez is a Turkish-German curator, art critic and writer. He lives and works in Düsseldorf.

Life and work

Necmi Sönmez studied art history, Byzantine art history and classical archaeology in Mainz, Paris, Newcastle and Frankfurt am Main. He gained his doctorate in 2001 in Frankfurt with a dissertation on “Milch, Blütenstaub, Reis und Wachs. Das Gesamtwerk von Wolfgang Laib” at Goethe University Frankfurt with Prof. Stefan Germer and Prof. Manfred Schneckenburger.
From 1994 to 1997, Sönmez worked as an independent curator, initiating and organizing numerous exhibition projects, mainly involving young artists, in Turkey, Germany, the Netherlands and France. From 1998 to 2000 he was a project assistant at the Museum Wiesbaden and at the MUMOK in Vienna.

Exhibitions

From 2001 until the end of January 2005, Sönmez held the post of curator of contemporary art at the Museum Folkwang in Essen, where he curated several exhibitions and projects, including the first museum exhibitions of artists, such as Didiert Trenet, Daniel Knorr, Surasi Kusolwong, Elisabeth Ballet and Saâdane Hafif.
From 2006 to 2008, Sönmez was artistic director of the Kunstverein Arnsberg, where he presented artists such as Ekrem Yalcindag, Gregor Schneider, Myriam Holme, Florian Bach, Sabine Boehl, Martin Dammann and Anja Cuipka.
His current activities include co-curating the exhibition “Contemporary Art from Islamic Cultures” Kunstmuseum Bochum, serving as a member of the committee of experts of the Regional Contemporary Art Fund in the French region of Franche-Comté and working as guest curator for the Proje4L / Elgiz Museum of Contemporary Art in Istanbul.

Public projects

Necmi Sönmez has changed the structure of Städtische Galerie Museum Folkwang to the Mobile Städtische Galerie from 2001 until 2005. He has developed an interdisciplinary subversive public art program aimed at forging closer links between theoretical formats and exhibition presentations.
Since 1994, Necmi Sönmez has published number of monographies on artists that function in parallel to his curatorial work including:
Necmi Sönmez has contributed to Flash Art, Neue Bildende Kunst, Kunstzeitung, Cumhuriyet and Virgül.