Born in Stockholm, Daniel Birnbaum has since 2001 been the Director of the Staedelschule in Frankfurt-am-Main in Germany, and the artistic director of the 53rd Venice Biennale. Since 1998, he has also been a contributing editor of Artforum in New York, with which he has been working regularly since 1995. Since the early 1990s he has also contributed regularly to other magazines such as Parkett and Frieze.