Kari Conte

Background

About Kari Conte

Kari Conte is a curator and writer focused on global contemporary art. She is a 2020-21 Fulbright Senior Research Scholar in Istanbul. Formerly, she was Director of Programs and Exhibitions at the International Studio & Curatorial Program (ISCP) in New York from 2010-20, where she is currently Senior Advisor. Additionally, she is Residency Curator for Kai Art Center in Tallinn, Advisor for the 2021 Helsinki Biennale and co-founder of Rethinking Residencies. She has curated more than forty exhibitions; these include recent solo presentations by Sonia Leimer (2019); Chiara Fumai (2019); Hikaru Fujii (2018); Jennifer Tee (2018); Eva Kot’átková (2016); and Richard Ibghy & Marilou Lemmens (2016) and the group exhibitions Concrete Truth: Art and the Documentary (2017); The Animal Mirror (2016); and Aqueous Earth (2015). She has also curated projects for the Aichi Triennale and Performa Biennial. As a writer, she is interested in the intersection of art, politics, ecology and feminism as well as institutional and exhibition histories. She published Seven Work Ballets, the first monograph on artist Mierle Laderman Ukeles (Sternberg Press, 2016) and has contributed to numerous other books and exhibition catalogues, most recently Curatorial Residencies: Saying yes to who or what turns up (Goethe-Institut, 2020); Localizing the Contemporary: The Kunsthalle Bern Model (JRP | Ringier, 2018); and Socially Engaged Art: History, Theory, Practice (Film Art Inc, Japan, 2018). She has lectured at institutions including the School of Visual Arts, Emily Carr University, The New York Public Library, Independent Curators International (ICI), ArtTable, and the Sharjah Art Foundation, among others. Born and raised in New York City, between 2007 and 2010 she was based in London, where she worked at Whitechapel Gallery and received an MA in Curating Contemporary Art from the Royal College of Art.