As director of the Munich gallery since 2003, he brought in an arts programme that featured architecture, fashion, design and film, and set up major exhibitions on Gerhard Richter and Anish Kapoor. He also curated the exhibition Amrita Sher-Gil: An Indian Artist Family of the 20th Century, which was at Tate Modern in 2006. More recently, Dercon has worked with architects Rem Koolhaas and Herzog & de Meuron on the renovation of the Haus der Kunst itself. Useful experience for the expanding Tate site.
From 1996 to 2003, Dercon was director of the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam, which he renovated and expanded too. While there, he was asked how he ranked contemporary artists. "Only a real misanthrope would dare to state that this or that artist is overrated," he said. "I guess I can say that one artist is more important than another one. But, even so, it is more appropriate to judge individual works of art." A diplomat, then.
