Dr. Raphael Gygax (*1980) is an art historian, curator, and writer based in Switzerland. He studied art history, film, and drama at the Universities of Bern and Zurich and received his PhD with a dissertation on the instrumentalization of bodies in contemporary art (Extra Bodies – The Use of the ‘Other Body’ in Contemporary Art).
From 2003 to 2019, he served as curator and head of publications at the Migros Museum für Gegenwartskunst in Zurich, where he realized numerous acclaimed exhibitions and oversaw and edited many publications, some of which received awards. From 2019 to 2023, he led the Bachelor Fine Arts program — the largest program for art education in Switzerland — at Zurich University of the Arts, where he also served as Deputy Director of the Department of Fine Arts.
Since 2023, Gygax has worked as an independent curator, developing exhibitions in Zurich, London, Paris, Luxembourg, Locarno, and New York. In 2023, he curated the annual exhibition program at Museo Casa Rusca in Locarno and was invited to curate the program at ART on THE MART (2024–25) in Chicago, the world’s largest permanent digital art projection. In 2024, he was also appointed Curator-at-Large at Kunsthaus Zurich.
Alongside his curatorial work, Gygax teaches at various universities and serves on several advisory boards, including Kunsthalle Stavanger in Norway. In addition, he advises several artist estates on curatorial strategy and vision. He contributes regularly to exhibition catalogues and leading art magazines such as frieze. From 2013 to 2015, he acted as curatorial advisor for the Focus and Live sections at Frieze Art Fair in London and New York, and from 2016 to 2017, he curated Frieze Projects, the fair’s non-profit artist commission program. In 2016 he was named as one of the 20 most influential young curators in Europe.
His recent solo exhibitions include Monster Chetwynd (2025), Olga Fröbe-Kapteyn (2024), nelly rudin (2024), Una Szeemann (2023), Martín Soto Climént (2023), Lily van der Stokker (2019/20), Maria Eichhorn (2018), Charles Atlas (2018), Ian Cheng (2016), Xanti Schawinsky (2015), Wu Tsang (2014), Teresa Margolles (2014), Alex Bag (2011), Christoph Schlingensief (2007), and Cory Arcangel (2005). Selected group exhibitions include Step Out of Your Body, Enter New Ones (2021), United by AIDS (2019), Extra Bodies (2017), Toys Redux (2015), Une Idée, une Forme, un Être (2010), and Deterioration, They Said (2009). In 2008, together with writer Sibylle Berg, he curated the interdisciplinary project Of those who will survive at Schauspielhaus Zurich.
