Directorate

Stephan Nikolaus Barthelmess is an internationally experienced cultural manager with a focus on the corporate management and governance of festivals, cultural institutions and museum buildings.  

After studying in the master class of cellist Csaba Onczay at the Franz Liszt Academy in Budapest, he studied art history, classical archaeology and philosophy in Munich and Paris. His final theses dealt with the concept of postmodernism and the architecture of museum buildings. In his doctoral thesis he focused on the theme of the urbanisation of architecture using the example of the museum’s task to build. He conducted his research as a doctoral fellow at the J. Paul Getty Foundation in Los Angeles and received scholarships by the French government.  

Study visits in Philadelphia and at the Sankt Gallen Management Centre accompanied his training as a cultural manager. After holding senior management positions at the Festival Pablo Casals Prades, the Frankfurt Book Fair, the Kulturkreis Höxter-Corvey, the Stiftung Preußischer Kulturbesitz and the Haus der Kunst in Munich, he was Commercial Director of the Kunsthalle Mannheim before joining Law Forum Foundation.