Florian Malzacher is a curator, writer, and dramaturg, as well as the host of The Art of Assembly, a series of lectures and talks about the potential of gathering in art, activism, and politics (since 2021). He is co-editor of the series Postdramatic Theater in Portraits published by Alexander Verlag Berlin. In 2020, his book Gesellschaftsspiele. Political Theater Today was published. His texts have been translated into 15 languages.
2013-17 he was Artistic Director of the Impulse Theater Festival (Düsseldorf, Cologne and Mülheim/Ruhr), 2006-12 co-programmer of the multidisciplinary festival steirischer herbst in Graz/Austria, and 2018-20 curatorial advisor of the Ruhrtriennale.
After completing his studies in Applied Theater Studies at the University of Giessen, he initially worked as a freelance theater critic and cultural journalist for large daily newspapers and national as well as international magazines.
As a dramaturge he has worked at theatres such as Burgtheater Vienna, Gorki Theater Berlin or Mousonturm Frankfurt with artists such as Rimini Protokoll, Lola Arias, Mariano Pensotti, Tania Bruguera or, regularly, the Nature Theater of Oklahoma (USA). He was a founding member of the independent curatorial collective Unfriendly Takeover in Frankfurt (2001-08).
Next to festivals Florian Malzacher (co-)curated, among others, the International Summer Academy (Mousonturm Frankfurt, 2002 & 2004), Dictionary of War (2006/07), Performing Lectures (Frankfurt 2004-06), Truth is concrete (Graz, 2012), Appropriations (Ethnological Museum Berlin, 2015), Artist Organisations International (with Jonas Staal & Joanna Warsza, HAU Berlin, 2015), Sense of Possibility. On the Occasion of the 100th Anniversary of the Revolution (St. Petersburg, 2017), After Supervising the Machinery (Engelskirchen, 2020), the Market for Useful Knowledge and Non-Knowledge (Haus der Berliner Festspiele, 2022 & Künstlerhaus Mousonturm, 2023), Training for the Future (with Jonas Staal, since 2018), as well as various performative conferences.
Guest professorships, teaching assignments, and master classes have taken him to universities and art academies in Amsterdam, Berlin, Frankfurt, Giessen, Helsinki, Leipzig, Oslo, Stockholm, Taipei, Vienna, Zagreb and Zurich, among others.
He has been or was a member of the Board of Trustees of the Kunststiftung NRW (since 2021), the advisory board of TURBA. The Journal for Global Practices in Live Arts Curation (since 2024), the Board of Trustees of the Fonds Darstellender Künste (2021-24), the Zurich Theater Commission (2013-22), the Jury of the Landesverband Freier Theater Baden-Württemberg (2013-22), the Theater Advisory Board of the Goethe-Institut (2015-20), the Goethe Co-Production Fund (2018-19), and the Advisory Board of DasArts – Master of Theatre, Amsterdam (2009-14).
Florian Malzacher is (co-)editor of monographs on artists such as Forced Entertainment (2004), Rimini Protokoll (2007), Nature Theater of Oklahoma (2019), andCompany&co. (2021), and Boris Nikitin (2022). Other publications include: Curating Performing Arts (ed., 2010), Truth is Concrete. A Handbook for Artistic Strategies in Real Politics (ed., 2014), Two Minutes of Standstill. A Collective Performance by Yael Bartana (ed., 2014), Not Just a Mirror. Looking for the Political Theatre of Today (ed., 2015), The Silent University. Towards a Transversal Pedagogy (ed., 2016), Empty Stages, Crowded Flats. Performativity as Curatorial Strategy (ed., 2017), and The Art of Assembly. Political Theatre Today (2020/23).