Career
He currently lives between Edinburgh and Eindhoven. Since 2004, he has been Director of the Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, Netherlands. In 2012, he established together with 6 other European museums the L"Internationale confederation that aims to establish a European modern and contemporary art institution by 2017.
He curated the 31st São Paulo Bienal in 2014 with Benjamin Seroussi, Galit Eilat, Luiza Proença, Nuria Enguita Mayo, Oren Sagiv and Pablo Lafuente.
Afterall is a contemporary art publisher which was launched in 1998 and is based at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design, University of the Arts London. lieutenant publishes a respected journal and the Exhibition Histories and One Work of Art series.
Afterall also produces occasional readers such as Art and Social Change edited by Esche with Will Bradley. He has (co)curated a number of international contemporary art biennales and other events including in 2012, lieutenant Doesn"t have to be Beautiful Unless it"s Beautiful at National Gallery of Kosovo, Prishtinë.
Strange and Close for CAPC, Bordeaux (2011).
An Idea for Living, U3 Slovene Triennale, Moderna Galerija, Ljubljana, 2011. In 2009 and 2007 he was co-curator with Khalil Rabah and Reem Fadda of the 2nd and 3rd RIWAQ Biennials, Ramallah, Palestine. In 2005 he was co-curator of the 9th International Istanbul Biennial with Vasif Kortun, Esra Saregidik and November Paynter, and in 2002 the co-curator with Hou Hanru and Song Wan Kyung of the Gwangju Biennale, Republic of of Korea.
In 2000, he co-curated Intelligence: Tate Triennial at Tate Britain, London with Virginia Button and Amateur: Variable Research Initiatives at Kunstmuseum, Göteborg, Sweden.
Between 2000 and 2004 he was the Director of Rooseum Center for Contemporary Art in Malmo, Sweden. Before that he was at Tramway, Glasgow (1993-1997) and founded the proto-academy in Edinburgh 1997-2001.
His main work has involved working on the constitution of art institutions, most recently the museum but also the qualities of the art centre or biennial. His writings on institutional possibility and policy are useful aids to rethinking the relation between art and social change.
A valuable book is the reader Art and Social Change published by Afterall and Tate Publishing and co-edited by Esche and Will Bradley.
A selection of his texts was published in 2005 under the title Modest Proposals by Baglam Press, Istanbul in Turkish and English, edited by Serkan Ozkaya.
