Head of Institute IAGN / Programme Head of BA Fine Arts
Short biography
Born in Spain, Chus Martínez has a background in philosophy and art history. She is the Head of the Institute Art Gender Nature, Basel Academy of Art and Design FHNW, and associate curator of the Ocean Space, Venice, a space spearheaded by TBA21–Academy, as well as curator at large at The Vuslat Foundation in Istanbul. She is currently leading a research project at the Institute Art Gender Nature, The Gender’s Factor, on the role of education enhancing all gender’s equality in the arts.
Chus Martínez is board member of CIMAM (International Committee for Museums) and also serves on the advisory boards of numerous international art institutions, including Castello di Rivoli, Turin; De Appel, Amsterdam; Deutsches Historisches Museum, Berlin. She has been the Chief Curator at El Museo Del Barrio, New York, and dOCUMENTA (13) Head of Department. Previously she was Chief Curator at MACBA, Barcelona, and Director of the Frankfurter Kunstverein. Martínez has organized numerous exhibitions and publications with contemporary artists. She lectures and writes regularly including numerous catalogue texts and critical essays, and is a regular contributor to international journals.
Recent publications are I Hear a New World! Revamping Public Programing with Joy. Friday Beyeler (2023); Like This. Natural Intelligence As Seen by Art, Hatje Cantz (2022); Coding Care (edited together with Sabine Himmelsbach), Hatje Cantz (2022): The Wild Book of Inventions, Sternberg Press (2020); Corona Tales. Let Life Happen to You, Lenz, (2021). The first compilation of her writing, The Complex Answer. On Art as a Nonbinary Intelligence, has been published in autumn 2023 by Sternberg Press. Current exhibitions include Liquid Intelligence (2023), Stephanie Comilang. Search for Life (2024) and Tabita Rezeire (2024) at the Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza in Madrid, as well as Woman Was The Sun, a video program for the Tokyo Art Week (2023).
Chus Martínez is also the chief curator at der TANK, the Institute Art Gender Nature’s exhibition space in Basel where she is in charge of a series of specially commissioned exhibitions including Annette Barcelo (2023), Peter Klein (2022), Elena Mazzi (2021), Taloi Havini (2021), Raffaela Naldi Rossano (2019), Cecilia Bengolea (2019), Teresa Solar (2018), Eduardo Navarro (2017), Ingela Ihrman (2017), Mathilde Rosier (2016) and Julieta Aranda (2016).