art+château is a not-for-profit association created in 2018 and based in Bern, Switzerland. art+château works with both emerging and established artists from around the globe to present contemporary art within alternative historic settings outside of the “white cube”. art+château’s mission is to build a platform for the exchange between local and international art scenes and make it accessible to a diverse public.

Board of Directors

art+château’s Board of Directors is the legal governing authority of our association under Swiss law. It is comprised of a team of three experienced professionals that bring together a unique and complementary set of knowledge and skills.

DR. VALENTINA LOCATELLI is an independent curator and writer based in Berne, Switzerland.

Dr. Locatelli works both as an independent curator, developing international exhibitions and artistic projects, and at museums in Switzerland, including three years at Fondation Beyeler (2009–2011), six years at Kunstmuseum Bern (2012–17) and two years at MASI Lugano (2020–21). Select shows she curated include: “Open Sesame! Anker, Hodler, Segantini… Masterpieces From the Foundation of Art, Culture and History” and “Without Restraint: Works by Mexican Women Artists From the Daros Latinamerica Collection”, both at Kunstmuseum Bern, and the monographic exhibition of Chinese artist Yuan Yuan, “Alternative Realities” at Palazzo Terzi, Bergamo. In 2019, Dr. Locatelli oversaw and curated the artistic program dedicated to modern and contemporary art in Latin America presented at the Grand Palais on the occasion of Art Paris Art Fair.

After beginning her career at international auction houses, such as Christie’s Department of 19th Century European Art in London and Dorotheum in Vienna, Dr. Locatelli obtained a Ph.D. from the University of Bergamo with a dissertation on Giovanni Morelli (1816–91) and art connoisseurship. In 2012, Dr. Locatelli also obtained the Master of Advanced Studies in Museology from the University of Geneva. A native Italian speaker, she holds a Master’s degree in foreign languages and literature and is fluent in English, French and German and conversant in Spanish.

In addition to working on several scientific catalogs for Fondation Beyeler (such as Basquiat, Segantini, Brancusi & Serra and Surrealism in Paris, all published by Hatje Cantz), Dr. Locatelli edited, wrote and published books, such as Kunstmuseum Bern: Masterpieces (Hirmer Verlag, 2016) and Cybèle Varela: Tropicalismo Remixed (Silvana Editoriale, 2018).

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CATHERINE SCHARF CHEVALLEY, an expert in the fields of cultural diplomacy and nation branding for Switzerland with 30 years of experience. 

She served as Cultural Counsellor for Switzerland in the Embassy of Berlin and at the General Consulates in São Paulo and New York. In 2021, she finished her career at the Swiss Embassy in Paris after contributing for 5 intense years to the development of the rich cultural exchange between the Swiss Confederation and France.  

Ms Scharf Chevalley graduated from the University of Nice-Côte d'Azur in Economic Sciences and Entrepreneurial Management, after which she specialized in Cultural Diplomacy. She has a vast knowledge of Swiss cultural production and institutions, as well as of the global contemporary art world. French is her mother tongue and she is fluent in English, German and Portuguese.

Her vast experience and wide-ranging network of contacts are an invaluable asset to the advancement of art+château.

DR. LILIANA WUFFLI-WOLF is an independent researcher and expert at the intersection of law, criminology and art crime.

She holds a Ph.D. in criminology, a Master of Law, and a Bachelor of Law from the University of Lausanne. Her career has been shaped by international experiences, including roles at the United Nations Institute for Crime Prevention and Justice in Turin and the International Labour Organization in Geneva, as well as her work with Swiss law firms. Before specializing in art crime, she worked as a jurist, handling complex legal issues in multicultural settings.

Her shift towards art crime led to her current research on the detection and prevention of forgeries in the art market, culminating in her doctoral thesis, Fakes, Forgeries, and Statistics in the Art Market: A Case Study of the Works of Félix Vallotton. In addition to her academic collaborations with the University of Lausanne, she works closely with experts from the Vallotton Foundation. Dr. Wuffli-Wolf employs a multidisciplinary approach that combines her legal expertise, passion for art history, and forensic techniques. This approach contributes to the ongoing development of art+château, supporting its mission to create a platform where art and heritage come together in innovative and meaningful ways.

DR. DANIELA KNALLER, a journalist and presenter at Austria’s national cultural radio station Ö1 for the past 12 years.

She holds a Ph.D. in Law from the University of Vienna; she gathered international working experience at the Austrian Trade Commission in Los Angeles as well as at the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. Dr. Knaller also served at the international department of the Health Ministry during Austria’s EU presidency and worked at the PricewaterhouseCoopers before she made her name in journalism.

She is one of the co-founders of the Weissensee Klassik Festival in Carinthia (Austria), a classical music festival which takes place every summer. German is her mother tongue and she is fluent in English, French and Spanish.

Advisory Council

art+château’s Advisory Council is a group of distinguished arts professionals who, on an ad hoc basis, provide information and make suggestions based on their substantial experience.

Dr. Hans-Michael Herzog is an acknowledged international expert on contemporary art, particularly from Latin America. He is based in Zurich, Switzerland. He studied art history, philosophy, and classical archaeology at the University of Bonn and was awarded his PhD in 1984 with a focus on Venetian Proto-Renaissance Sculpture. From 1987 until 1989, Dr. Herzog worked for the Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen, München. Between 1989 and 1999 he was Curator of the Kunsthalle Bielefeld. Dr. Herzog was the Artistic Director and Chief Curator of the Daros Latinamerica Collection (2000–2015) and the Artistic Director of the Daros Collection (2005–09), both based in Zürich. He was Founding Director of the Casa Daros in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

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Betsabeé Romero is a plastic artist based in Mexico City, Mexico. For more than 15 years Romero’s work has specialized in the elaboration of a critical discourse on issues such as migration, miscegenation and mobility, through the resemantization of symbols and daily rites of the culture of global consumption, such as automobiles, tattoos, urban signage, et al. In the same way, Romero has been interested in addressing the problems of public art and popular art, its permanence and relationship with the social fabric and with an alternative audience to contemporary art. Romero has had more than 100 individual exhibitions in Mexico, the United States and Europe.

betsabeeromero.com

Dr. Barbara Dawson is Director of the Hugh Lane Gallery of modern and contemporary art in Dublin. She has overseen the transition of the city art gallery into a leading cultural institution and organised several Irish and international exhibitions and projects. In 1998, she secured the gift of Francis Bacon’s Studio and Archive in London from the artist’s heir and oversaw all aspects of the removal of the studio from London and its successful installation in the Hugh Lane Gallery in Dublin. In 2010, she was awarded a PhD in Fine Arts in recognition of her services to the visual arts; in 2014, she was appointed Adjunct Professor of The School of Art History and Critical Policy at University College Dublin and was a member of the Trinity Long Room Hub Institute Board 2017–2020. In 2019, she was appointed a Creative Fellow of University College Dublin, College of Arts and Humanities.