[1] Herzogenrath studied art history, archaeology and ethnology in Kiel, Berlin and Bonn.
He received his doctorate in 1970 with a thesis on Oskar Schlemmer's murals.
[2] In 1973 the 28-year-old Herzogenrath was hired to be director of a German Kunstverein (Art Society) in Cologne, Germany.
From 1989 he was the chief curator of the National Gallery (Berlin), entrusted with the Hamburger Bahnhof division for contemporary art.
Herzogenrath left in 1994 to lead the Kunsthalle Bremen until his retirement in 2011.