The Board of Directors of the Fondazione la Biennale di Venezia, chaired by Paolo Baratta, held a meeting on 7th April 2008 in which it nominated Daniel Birnbaum as Director of the Visual Arts Sector, with specific responsibility as curator of the 53rd International Art Exhibition. Born in Stockholm in 1963, Daniel Birnbaum, since 2001 have been Dean of the Staedelschule in Frankfurt-am-Main in Germany and he is also the director of the exhibition space Portikus. In 2005, he was co-curator of the 1st Biennial of Moscow. In 2008, he will be co-curator of the Triennial of Yokohama and curator of the 2nd Triennial of Turin. Since 2001, he has been on the board of European biennial, Manifesta. The Venice Biennial will be place from June to November 2009.