Petra Poelzl is a freelance curator, dramaturge and researcher, working in the fields of visual, performing and performance art. Poelzl studied Sinology, Chinese language and theatre studies in Vienna, Beijing and Berlin. She received her master at the Free University in Berlin and attended the postgraduate program Art Criticism and Curatorial Knowledge at the department of Art History at Ruhr University Bochum. 

 

Poelzl was a dramaturge in the program department of steirischer herbst Festival for New Art in Graz. Since 2016, she has been working closely with the artist Tianzhuo Chen on his stage performances such as Ishvara (2016), An Atypical Brain Damage (2017) and Trance (2022). In 2018, Poelzl co-curated the program series Karma Ltd. Extended at Acud Macht Neu in Berlin. Further, Poelzl worked closely as a dramaturge to the director Ariel Efraim Ashbel. She was the artistic and managing director of Kunstpavillon and Neue Galerie Innsbruck, which are part of the Tyrolean Artists' Association  in Innsbruck (Tyrol, Austria) and is currently working as a curator for dance & performance at HAU Hebbel am Ufer (Berlin). 

 

For her research on performance art practices in Chengdu during the 1990s, Poelzl received a grant from the Asia Art Archive in Hong Kong as well as the  DAAD (German Academic Exchange Service).  Further grants are Goethe-Research Grant (Philippines), BMUKK (Organ Space, Chongqing, China), BMUKK (Residency Unlimited, New York). 

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Her texts have been published in the peer-reviewed journal  Journal of Contemporary Chinese Art: Gender in Contemporary Chinese Art  (Volume 6, Number 1), in Yishu: Journal of Contemporary Chinese Art as well as in several exhibition catalogues and magazines. Poelzl has been guest lecturer at the  Free University of Berlin  (Theatre Studies), Academy of Applied Arts (Vienna) and Academy of Fine Arts Vienna.