People
Thomas Eller
German curator, writer, and artist Thomas Eller has pursued a multifaceted career spanning Europe, the United States, and Asia. Trained initially as an artist, he has consistently worked across disciplinary boundaries, combining artistic practice, curatorial experimentation, and editorial engagement.
Eller first gained wider recognition as the founder of artnet Magazine, helping to establish one of the earliest online platforms dedicated to contemporary art criticism and cultural commentary. Between 2008 and 2010, he served as Artistic Director of the Temporäre Kunsthalle Berlin, an influential institution situated on Schlossplatz that became a site for debate on the role of public art institutions in a reunified Berlin.
His engagement with Asia has been equally significant. After relocating to Beijing in 2014, Eller founded Gallery Weekend Beijing and became President of Ran Dian, a Hong Kong–based publication devoted to contemporary art in China and beyond. From 2019 to 2021 he directed the Taoxichuan China Arts & Sciences project in Jingdezhen and worked as an associate researcher at Tsinghua University.
Parallel to his curatorial and editorial activities, Eller has maintained an artistic practice centred on photography, moving images, sculpture, and questions of perception. Since 2011, he has developed the ongoing body of work The White Male Complex, examining identity, philosophy, religion, and social structures through fragmented narratives and manipulated imagery.
In 2026, Eller returned to the Venice Biennale as co-curator of the Mongolian Pavilion together with Uranchimeg Tsultem. Titled Entanglements: Connectivities Across Borders, the exhibition brings together works by Nomin Bold, Gerelkhuu Ganbold, Tuguldur Yondonjamts, and Dorjderem Davaa, exploring historical and contemporary exchanges across Eurasia. The pavilion proposes Mongolia not as a fixed territory but as a space of connectivity, inclusion, and transformation.
Moving between artistic production, institutional critique, publishing, and transnational cultural mediation, Thomas Eller exemplifies a generation of practitioners for whom art making and intellectual inquiry remain inseparable.