Martin Kunz Biography
BASEL
1947: Born in Basel
Born in Basel on October 6th to Gregor N. Kunz - a lawyer with great interest in classical art and a passion for traveling - and Helene Hupfer, whose family had a background farming and the gravel industry.
Vito Acconci
1957 - 1967: Early education and interests
Attends Humanistisches Gymnasium, Basel's historic high school, where he pursues a traditional education with emphasis on Latin and ancient Greek. MK later expands his classic curriculum moving to less prestigious highschool Real Gymnasium to include modern languages next to latin and more science. He develops interest and a passion for contemporary architecture.
1967: Academic training abroad
After receiving his baccalaureate he visits the ETH Zurich - an internationally renowned federal polytechnic university - with the goal of becoming an architect. He soon reconsiders his plans and moves to Paris where he enrolls at the École du Louvre, studying art history. In addition, he gets enrolled in courses in modern theater and literature at the Sorbonne. There he has the opportunity to be instructed by leading theatre figures like Jean-Louis Barrauld, Jean Vilar, and Ariane Mnouchkine - experiences that lead him to the decision to enter the field himself as a director and dramaturg. Beyond his wide-ranging academic interests, the many cultural offerings of Paris and life in the metropolis itself begin to shape a vision of his future in the arts. His soon to be demolished neighborhood of "Les Halles" inspires him to take up photography and document his doomed surroundings, learning to develop and print B/W photographs himself .
1967 - 1968: Return to Switzerland and military service
The Municipal Theater in Basel - which has its own ensembles in all performing disciplines, housed in different buildings - has recently embarked on a new era with the joint directorship of the author Friedrich Dürrenmatt and the theatre and opera director Werner Düggelin. This adventurous team is ready to give MK, who comes with recommendations from the prominent French directors he studied with, an opportunity as an assistant. The draft notice by the Swiss Armed Forces undermines these plans, and upon completing his mandatory service, MK decides instead to major in art history at Basel University. He chooses German and French literature, complemented by archaeology as a secondary subject. This wide range of knowledge, he hopes, will provide him with a broad foundation for his future career in the theater.
1968: Begins art history studies in Basel
As an art-history student in Basel, MK soon becomes disappointed in the conservative approach of his professors and their lack of interest in contemporary art. Since the art history department of this distinguished university with its long humanist tradition is housed inside the Kunstmuseum Basel, he embraces every opportunity to see works by international avant-garde artists that are on view in a dedicated room among the more familiar displays. His frustration with the faculty's ignorance about current art - which extends to most students - turns him into an activist for an updated curriculum, equally fueled by the rebellious zeitgeist as by his enthusiasm for the museum's acquisitions of pieces by Joseph Beuys and American minimalists. The placement of these works directly in front of the seminar receives plenty of aggressive and contemptuous comments from the art history department . >BEUYS “SNOWFALL”, 1965 In order to gain closer access to art, MK starts working as a practicing student assistant to the longtime director of the museum's famous Kupferstichkabinett, Dr.Dieter Koepplin, an expert on Cranach and Holbein who also mounts many pioneering, often controversial exhibitions of contemporary art. The intimate contact with masterpieces of the last five hundred years trains MK's eye but he also becomes engaged in the preparations of two seminal Joseph Beuys exhibitions. The encounter with this highly contentious figure deepens MK's understanding of and fervor for radically new forms of expression. Meeting the curator Harald Szeemann, who had just invented a whole new concept of exhibition making, during the installation of his fiercely contested show “When Attitudes Become Form” in 1969 proves equally influential to MK's philosophy. > COLLAB. ON 2 Contested Beuys Exh.69/70
1970: First institutional exhibition - Action Uni '70 - Basel
MK curates his first exhibition as a student at Basel University, disturbing the peace with an unprecedented display of new and highly controversial art: in the institution's main halls and hallways as well as the university square whichhitherto to mild-mannered sculptures and paintings, he shows provocative installations and films by members of the irreverent Fluxus group, among others. Beuys reigns over the aula maxima with Eurasienstab - the scandal goes beyond the university walls.
1970 - 1977: Continued art history studies in Basel and London
While enrolled for two semesters,as a research student at the Courtauld Institute in London MK begins to write about contemporary art, initially for the Swiss publications Kunst-Nachrichten and Kunstbulletin, followed by articles for Studio International in London and other international magazines like Kunstforum and Flash Art. In the late seventies, MK finds a large readership for his essays in Basler Zeitung. His full-page text on Picasso's last exhibition during the artist's lifetime - an unedited presentation of his vast output of the previous two years, shown in Avignon shortly before his death - stands out among many dismissive voices for its sympathetic analysis. Repro Page of Paper
1972: MK is invited to curate an exhibition at Stampa Gallery in Basel
MK is invited to curate an exhibition at Stampa Gallery in Basel, which has been showing Swiss and international artists, especially in the nascent field of video art, with an emphasis on female artists like mostly female artists like Marianne Elgenheer, Pipilotti Rist, Rosemarie Trockel, and Miriam Kahn. MK presents a program of early Swiss video artist mostly from Geneva and Lausanne. The show travels to the Musée Rath in Geneva.( See Catalogue with text b.y MK) Dr. Zdenek Felix at the Kunstmuseum Basel, who initiated a film and video program based on contemporary artists from the collection - for example Bruce Nauman - asks Kunz to present his selection of young German video artists. MK continues his collaboration with Felix on the group show “Konzept Kunst” in Basel.
1973: MK earns a reputation as an expert in the field
These exhibitions and his writings on video art earn MK a reputation as an expert in the field and leed to the invitation to the First International Convention on Video Art at Steirischer Herbst, the influential art festival in Graz. He is the only Swiss participant among other champions of the young art discipline like David Ross from the US, Wulf Herzogenrath from Germany and Peter Weibel and Richard Kriesche from Austria.
1975 - 1977: Return to Paris for doctoral research
In an attempt to extend his master-thesis - begun already in 1973 and frequently interrupted by his continued studies, curatorial activities and writing assignments - into a dissertation on the influence of Marcel Duchamp's Ready Made on Dadaism and Surrealism all the way to contemporary art - MK returns to Paris for additional research. He meets the figurative painter Françoise Bourgeau, a descendent of Hungarian Jews - artists among them - who fled from Vienna to Paris in the 1930s. They live together in the 10th arrondisment. When MK has practically completed his doctoral thesis and is almost ready for publication, he receives an urgent phone call: as a finalist for the position of museum director in Lucerne, he has to return to Switzerland immediately. His plan to get his Duchamp-book is put on the backburner.
LUCERNE
1977 - 1989: Director of the Kunstmuseum Lucerne and Curator of International Exhibition
After being appointed as the successor of Jean-Christophe Ammann in the spring of 1977, MK is confronted with an equally challenging and rewarding situation: Amman - who vacates his director's post in Lucerne in favor of heading the Kunsthalle Basel - leaves behind a high-profile institution with a reputation for cutting-edge contemporary art that is not limited to an international program but also includes emerging Swiss artists and special summer exhibitions in the context of the International Festival of Music, which takes place in the same building. When MK begins his directorship in December of 1977, he is handed a very progressive and well known institution but also faces severely restricted finances, a tiny staff as well as a demanding exhibition schedule tied to local traditions and events. As Amman departs, he takes all his ongoing projects with him - a challenge and an opportunity for MK, since the totally open program provides him with the chance to implement his own vision right away. He debuts in January 1978 with the first museum show of the German conceptual and minimal artist Peter Roehr, who died at a young age. In addition, he shows other international minimalist who, like Roehr, also work within serial structures. From the very beginning MK strives to complement the museum's mandate to regularly present Swiss artists with exhibitions of individual artists and art movements from abroad. He succeeds in growing the sophisticated audience his predecessor has cultivated. MK introduces architects and photographers to the museum's programs and also changes offerings from the collection more frequently.He also includes avant-garde artists from earlier generations, and in his first year he reaches an attendance record with the retrospective of the 19th century Lucerne artist Robert Zündl by developing novel publicity and educational campaigns. During his twelve years at the Lucerne museum, MK produces and curates over 150 exhibitions and almost as many catalogues. MK himself counts Vito Acconci's European museum debut in 1978, a site-specific tour de force with the politically charged title "Asylum," among his most important shows LINK ZU INTERVIEW. 1979 he is able to mount his own Joseph Beuys exhibit: "Traces in Italy" presents drawings, hes Gouaches, Objects and, which the artist made years after his frequent stays Italy as a soldier during WWII, delicately revisiting the experience. LINK ZU INTERVIEW
1979: MKs and Françoise’s son, Thomas Bourgeau, is born.
Françoise Bourgeau, who has split her time between Switzerland and France since MK’s appointment to lead the Kunstmuseum. However, life in the comparatively provincial city of Lucerne does not suit her, and she moves back to Paris for good shortly before Thomas’ birth. The couple separates.
1980: The Venice Biennale and other international exhibitions
Shortly after taking on his new position at the Lucerne Museum - and not least because of the impact of his Acconci exhibition - the Venice Biennale appoints MK in 1978 as commissioner and curator of the main international exhibit at the Central Pavilion in the Giardini. He is the youngest among his well-established co-curators Harald Szeemann, Michael Compton (from Tate Gallery), and Achille Bonito Oliva who are chosen to collectively organize the main exhibition at the Giardini. This imaginative team pushes the Biennale administration to add an entirely new exhibit of young artists to the already planned review of representative works from the seventies. The Biennale president eventually agrees to the show, however, it is to take place outside the Giardini. Szeemann deserves the main credit for this decidedly of-the-moment art overview’s final iteration, which opens under the title "Aperto 80" in the Magazzini del Sale. This segment of the Biennale resonates strongly with the public and the concept becomes an integrated feature of future biennales, which are later presented in the Arsenale. Marriage to the Lucerne artist and art teacher Marianne Elgenheer. In the same year, their daughter Yasimin Martina Kunz is born. Marianne Elgenheer, who used to assist Jean Christoph Amman in editing his catalogues, now does the same for MK.
1981: On the heels of his prestigious initial assignment in Venice MK is invited to curate several large international
On the heels of his prestigious initial assignment in Venice MK is invited to curate several large international. He is chosen as one of five commissioners for the Trigon Biennale in Graz, representing Swiss artist for the first time at this venue. For the next four Trigon Biennales MK keeps this position in different countries, each time adding Swiss artists to his selection of artists from all over Europe. One exhibition at the Lucerne Museum that stands out for MK personally is "CH '70-'80/Schweizer Kunst '70-'80", which features the most innovative Swiss artists of their generation - among them John Armleder, Martin Disler, Niele Toroni, Marianne Eigenheer, Sylvie Defraoue, Muriel Olesen, Ilse Weber and Aldo Walker. Located between the poles regionalism and internationalism, this show stands out for its emphasis on specifically Swiss traditions and their translation into radically new expressions, especially in performance and video art. The group show travels abroad, introducing these young Swiss artists to audiences in Bonn, Graz, Bologna and Genoa.
1982: With his survey exhibition "British Sculpture Now" MK introduces emerging artists
With his survey exhibition "British Sculpture Now" MK introduces emerging artists like Anish Kapoor, Richard Deacon, Bill Woodrow and Steven Cox even before they are shown in London. As an advocate of underrepresented female artists, MK shows Maria Lassnig, Alice Aycock, Astrid Klein, Christa Näher, and Isolde Wawrin throughout the 1980s.There was also a project of participation in a Louise Bourgeois exhibition with Weiermeier in Frankfurt, which was not realized by his successor.. During his entire time in Lucerne, MK is involved in the museum's annual collaboration with the International Festival of Music that features retrospectives of major artists as well as large art-historical surveys aimed at the international audience who comes to town for the concerts. Furthermore, many of his traveling shows originally produced for Lucerne made their way through Europe and even to the USA.
1987 - 1988: MK curates the Edinburgh International
MK curates the Edinburgh International under the title Reason and Emotion in Contemporary Art in collaboration with Douglas Hall and Michael Compton. Nineteen artists participate in the exhibit held at the Royal Scottish Academy. Among them Tony Cragg, Richard Deacon, Rebecca Horn, Ann McCroy, Michelangelo Pistoletto, Salvo, Cy Twombly, Isolde Wawrin, Sol LeWitt and Terry Winters - almost all artists MK has already presented either in Lucerne or at other biennales. LINK
1988: MK regards his "Homage to Siegfried Rosengart"
MK regards his "Homage to Siegfried Rosengart" - an exhibition about the famed art connoisseur who founded his eponymous gallery in Lucerne in 1920 and sold works by Gauguin, Cézanne, Picasso, and Chagall to his colleagues in the United States, Japan and many European countries - as his most joyful curatorial task in the festival context, especially because of the opportunity to work with his Rosengart's daughter Angela. The work on this ambitious exhibition opens the doors to many international collectors and art historians and leads to MK's role in helping the Museum Rosengart come into existence in 2002.
1989: MK shows “Drawing and Sculpture: Four Swiss Artists”
At the art center Circolo di Bellas Artes in Madrid, MK shows “Drawing and Sculpture: Four Swiss Artists” with Armleder, Diesler, Müller, and Stalder, whose works examine the relationship between the second and the third dimension.
NewYork
1989: Departure from Lucerne Museum and move to New York
In the winter of 1989 MK leaves the Lucerne Museum and moves to New York where he plans to open a European-style Kunsthalle, a type of exhibition space that he finds lacking in the city's vital art scene. He had to build up the institution with help of European Art Philantropists from scratch. The building which was selected was still in use as a well known, but run down film studio near Cooper Union, the “Mother’s Film stages”, set up an non-for-profit organisation “The New York Kunsthalle”. To be invoved with planning the architectural trasformation of the 45’00 sqtt 3-story building into a institutional the Art Gallery was most fascinating, The first cosen was Frank Gehry who liked to do a type of Temporary Contemporary like in LA , but with a historic building In this phase MK had to manage and supervise also his last project for Lucerne: an extensive William Wegman retrospective, which after its first stop in Lucerne travels to four additional museums in Europe and subsequently to five institutions in the United States, the Whitney Museum among them.
1993: Opening of the New York Kunsthalle
After the extensive renovation in the end by younger architects aas Gehry got in a progressive success drive a he Cooper Union Professor Diane Lewis was chosen for the restructuring of the former Mother’s film stages, a 19th century building occupying two lots in the East Village with 4’000 m2 of floor space near Cooper Union and the Bowery, the New York Kunsthalle opens in April of 1993. The previous year a devastating fire in the roof and on the third floor that destroyed much of the famous Film stages finishing on all front pages of NY papers. It also leaves the Studio and future Kunsthalle without a roof for its inaugural exhibition: a site-specific installation by the German artist Felix Droese, who became famous in the 1980s with provocative shows at the German Pavilion in Venice (1988) and at documenta 7 (1982). The Kunsthalle immediately gains a reputation as a beacon for adventurous art productions, especially among artists.
1993 - 1994: Groundbreaking exhibitions at New York Kunsthalle
In its first two years, the New York Kunsthalle mostly presents exhibitions by emerging artists who in many cases are inspired by the ruin itself or by the traces and left overs from the film studio. Quite a few of them eventually appear in biennials and established New York institutions. Among those are Nancy Rubins, Dan Peterman, Kirsten Mosher and Sonia Labouriou, who are represented in the 1993 exhibit Enclosure - it goes up while construction work on the building is still in progress, and the equipment is used for some of the large scale installations. In the early spring of 1994, the still partially ruined Kunsthalle becomes an ideal backdrop for the exhibit Sarajevo, Witnesses of Existence. The participants had been originally selected for the Venice Biennale but because their city was shut off by the military they were unable to leave. Susan Sontag and George Soros join a diplomatic and financial effort backed by a UN guarantee to allow the artists to leave Sarajevo temporarily and to show their work in New York. This successful intervention brings recognition to the Kunsthalle far beyond the art world, especially when Vanessa Redgrave, Susan Sontag, and Annie Liebowitz participate in a film screening and poetry reading on location. George Soros and many other celebrities are present at the opening. That same year, Louise Bourgeois gives a multiple of a large bronze claw titled Give or Take in support of the Kunsthalle. William Wegman also produces a portfolio of dog photographs under the open sky - he calls it Roofless and donates it to the non-profit. Under the same title, MK directs a documentary that shows the artist's intimate collaboration with his canine stars at the Kunsthalle. Before the fire, Wegman had collaborated on a production with the TV-station Nickelodeon at Mothers Film Stages - the images of his three dogs were presented like the famous movement studies of Eadweard Muybridge. Wegman had given permission to MK to document the filming under the auspices of the Kunsthalle. With Wegman’s help, both MK documentaries are combined to a thirty-minute-film titled Wegman at Work. In the winter of 1994, the film premiers at Angelika Film Center along with Wegman's own film,The Hardy Boys. The well-attended event is followed by a fundraising reception at Sonnabend Gallery where the Roofless portfolio is exhibited for several weeks in support of the New York Kunsthalle. Link: invite to the Filmpremier,Card for Portfolio
1994 - 1995: Intensive renovations, including a new roof, take place
Intensive renovations, including a new roof, take place. During that period, the two storefronts of the building, which are accessible from East Fifths Street, are used as exhibition spaces: a small jury of well-known New York art critics, artists, and curators selects 36 participants to show their work for an extended amount of time. However, since the Kunsthalle is a construction site, the audience can view the continuously changing exhibit named Peep Show only through large holes. Over the four months of its duration, the project attracts a steady audience of art-minded friends and neighbors to keep in touch with the New York Kunsthalle.
1996: The structural renovation of the entire building is finally completed
The structural renovation of the entire building is finally completed and the new roof is raised. However, the raw character of the exhibition areas is preserved to dramatic effect. The elegant new spaces - spreading over three floors and totaling 3000 square meters - premier with the show 29-0/East: a juxtaposition of the Americans Doug Aitken, Glen Seator,(both for First institutional presentation) Kirsten Mosher, and Christine Oppenheim together with the Austrian artists Ernst Caramelle, Brigitte Kowanz, Erwin Wurm, Gerwald Rockenschaub, and Matta Wagnest.The Austrian Government had provided generous financial support for the large exhibition with several major installations and then commissioned the bi-national project through Markus Brüderlin, the special Austrian Curator for international contemporary projects at the time. Two weeks later, the same group of artists presents different installations in Vienna’s Kulturraum. The Austrian government generously underwrites the entire project. NY May 11 -June 13 1996
1996: Nancy Spero creates a large two floor installation
Nancy Spero creates a large two floor installation titled A cycle in Time (1995), displaying extremely long silk banners floating freely in space, occupying the entire 700 square meter space. A wall painting with her signature stencil imprints runs along the white entry wall.These installations coincide with two other important gallery exhibitions in New York: one at Jack Tilton, the other at P.P.O.W. A book accompanies the three coordinated exhibitions. Nancy Spero creates special silkscreen edition for the Kunsthalle. Oct - Nov 9, 1986 reviews in NY TIMES; Grace Glück Oct. 18, 1996 ART REVIEWS …...
1996 - 1997: MK selects two emerging Swiss artists
MK selects two emerging Swiss artists, Beat Streuli and Andrian Schiess, for solo shows at the New York Kunsthalle. Both present large scale installations spread over three floors: Beat Streuli showed two large projections, Portait Taragona ‘96 and USA ‘95. As an artist in residence he also produces black & white prints on the premises. Andrian Schiess, who had earlier participated in the documenta and also represented Switzerland at the Venice Biennale, displays his large monochromes on lacquered composite board in blacked out galleries only illuminated by video monitors that he places on the floor - the intense colors of his Night Landscapes are muted to a faint reflection of the electronic glare. Pro Helvetia, the Swiss Foundation for the Arts, the Swiss Consul Gemeral and several other Swiss foundations lent their financial support - the only time the Kunsthalle received any monetary backing from these institutions. Nov 23,1996 - Feb 2 1997
1997: MK and Linda Salerno marry
MK and Linda Salerno marry. The painter and photographer, who grew up in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania as an only child of Southern Italian immigrants, had moved to Soho in the early 1970s and became deeply connected to the downtown artist community. In her large-scale paintings, she often worked with found images embedded in layers of paint and experimented with inventive techniques. She began showing her work at East Village galleries at the beginning of the 1980s, and in 1983 she was included in a large exhibit of new painting from the US that traveled to Museums in Bologna, Ravenna and Rimini. The Drawing Center in New York also showed her work early on. LINK. lindasalerno.com Their wedding at the Kunsthalle is a semi-private event that includes several performances. Artists from New York and Switzerland join close friends at a grand party on all floors of the building.
1997: Leon Golub
Leon Golub, whose powerful tableaux of human cruelty and suffering MK was the first to present in a museum on the European continent in 1987 in Lucerne and Hamburg newer paintings of the ‘70and ‘80. In New York Golub showed his earlier exhibits works from his intense series Shields and Gigantomachy of the late ‘60 and ‘70. Exact dates in 1997 But the critical success of this and previous shows alone cannot carry the Kunsthalle, and MK is forced to announce the closing of his non-profit in the near future. Lack of support from American foundations as well as city, state, and federal cultural US agencies - they assume funding by European patrons and institutions - but as noted above, the co-existence of the more and more active “Swiss Institute” made also the financing from big Swiss sponsors and government difficult, The Streuli-Schiess project being the only exception. MK also loses the support of his European donors when American funding proves to be largely inaccessible, or regularly postponed with giving the same time lot’s of compliments. This necessitates this painful move when the several private Swiss and German supporters would loose their motivation and engagement. In spite of its great reputation and growing audience.
1997/98: Closing of the New York Kunsthalle
Closing of the New York Kunsthalle and conversion of the building into a condominium with private exhibition space
Ticino
1998 - 2000: New Restructuring Project
MK and Linda Salerno, embark on a second transformation of the 1870 building, this time converting its 4500 square meters into condominiums with a large exhibition space in their own quarters on the third floor. They re-christen the building with its original name, Beethoven Hall. MK buys out his original Swiss partners and replaces them with American partners who were also residents , primarily other artists needing large living -working lofts. He and Linda Salerno, who sold the SoHo loft that was her home and studio for more than thirty years, take on a big risk by privately financing half the project, baked by Swiss bank loans. The conversion of the previously non-profit entity into a commercial structure with large lofts for artists and art professionals presents immense legal, financial and logistic challenges.
2000 - 2003: Exhibitions and events at the former Kunsthalle, now Beethoven Hall
MK and Linda Salerno move into their loft on the top floor of the former Kunsthalle. LS transfers the content of her Soho studio of 30 years to the East Village and shows her paintings in the grand project room with its fifteen-meter ceiling adjacent to the couple's living quarters. Exhibitions of Qui Shi Hua, Allen Frame, and others follow, as well as concerts and screenings of avant-garde films. The unique space lends itself to various commercial uses - film,video, and fashion photo shoots, promotional parties for designers like Calvin Klein and fundraisers for New York art institutions - that help carry the costs for the cultural events.
2002: Linda Salerno is diagnosed with a serious illness
Linda Salerno is diagnosed with a serious illness and the couple decides to move to Someo in the Ticino, where MK owns a house and superior health care is available. The 19th MK has been writing most of his catalogue texts since 1980, and there is room for a painting studio.
2005: Return to Switzerland
MK and LS sell their share of Beethoven Hall and move permanently to Switzerland. They acquire an additional building in Lugano for closer proximity to medical facilities.
2005 - 2007: Director of the Ascona Museum of Modern Art
MK becomes director of the Ascona Museum of Modern Art. Part of his mission requires the supervision of the creation of a new museum structure within a planned music and art Center - the project is never realized. During his brief tenure in Ascona MK manages to mount two major exhibitions: "Photo Swiss", a survey of contemporary Swiss photography; and "Chere Louise", an homage to Louise Bourgeois with contributions by eighty female artists dedicating works to their heroine on the occasion of her 95th birthday. When the planning for another Louise Bourgeois exhibition - a show of her hitherto neglected narrative works with the title "Storytelling" - is already well underway to coincide with her Tate retrospective, the project falls victim to petty political intrigue and is cancelled. MK immediately hands in his resignation.
2007 - 2009: Founding of K10-kunzarchive
MK oversees the scholarly organization of his library of about 20,000 art books, catalogues and bibliophile items, which have traveled back to Switzerland from New York. He lays the groundwork for the eventual opening of K10-kunzarchive as a semi-public research and exhibition space. Parallel to these efforts MK also converts a former Coop supermarket that LS has discovered in Bedano - a northern part of Lugano - into a studio and exhibition space for her.
2009 - 2011: Kunzarchive & Projects
Under the umbrella of the newly established entity Kunzarchive & Projects, MK is preparing a publication and exhibition on New York art and culture of the 90's. He continues to develop his abruptly aborted "Storytelling"-Project and remains in contact with Louise Bourgeois, hoping to find another venue. He is asked to edit a book on LS for CHARTA editions, the Milan-based art-book publishing house, in connection with a show of her recent experimental photographs. While her exhibition travels to Magliaso, New York, Basel, and Rome, LS's health deteriorates rapidly. She dies shortly after her 60th birthday in 2011 - a full decade after her US doctors had pronounced her life expectancy to be less than a year.