Jury

Nicholas Baume

Nicholas Baume joined Public Art Fund as Director and Chief Curator in 2009. A native of Australia, his curatorial career began there with Kaldor Public Art Projects and later the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney. He was Contemporary Curator at the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford, Connecticut, before moving to Boston to join the Institute of Contemporary Art as Chief Curator. Baume has curated more than fifty exhibitions with a wide range of significant international artists at different stages of their careers. Author of several major exhibition catalogs, he is a frequent public speaker on contemporary art, and has contributed essays and interviews to numerous publications.

Iwona Blazwick

Iwona Blazwick is Director of the Whitechapel Gallery, London since 2001 and is a curator, critic and lecturer. She was formerly at Tate Modern and London’s ICA as well as working as an independent curator in Europe and Japan. Blazwick is series editor of Whitechapel Gallery/MIT Documents of Contemporary Art. She has written monographs and articles on many contemporary artists and published extensively on themes and movements in modern and contemporary art, exhibition histories and art institutions.

Björn Geldhof

Björn Geldhof is Artistic Director at the PinchukArtCentre (Kyiv) and Artistic and strategic director at Yarat (Baku). Geldhof curated numerous projects internationally including: the Ukrainian National Pavilion at the 56th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia; the Future Generation Art Prize exhibitions in Venice in 2011 and 2013. He has curated various exhibitions such as, China China, Fear and Hope, Loss: in Memory of Babi Ya and worked with among others: Damián Ortega, Olafur Eliasson, Anish Kapoor, Ai Weiwei, Jenny Holzer, Berlinde Debruykere, Tony Oursler, Jake & Dinos Chapman and Carlos Motta. 

Prior to this role, Geldhof worked directly with the Belgian artist Jan Fabre and managed the art and culture magazine Janus. Geldhof studied at Katholieke Universiteit of Leuven, Belgium. 

Mami Kataoka

Photographed by Daniel Boud

Mami Kataoka is chief curator of Mori Art Museum in Tokyo since 2003 where she curated number of exhibitions, including “Ai Weiwei: According to What?” (2009/ US Tour 2012-13), “Lee Bul” (2012), “Makoto Aida” (2012), and “Lee Mingwei and His Relations” (2014-15). Prior to this position, Kataoka was Chief Curator at Tokyo Opera City Art Gallery (1997-2002) and researcher at the NLI Research Institute on cultural policies and urban development projects (1992-1997). She was also International curator at the Hayward Gallery in London from 2007 to 2009. In 2012 she guest curated “Phantoms of Asia: Contemporary Awakens the Past” at Asian Art Museum in San Francisco, and was a Co-Artistic Director for the 9th Gwangju Biennale in South Korea. She serves as Board Member of CIMAM, member of Asian Art Council of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, and the Advisory Board of the Ullens Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing. Kataoka is also a professor at Kyoto University of Art and Design Graduate School of Art and Design Studies since 2016. Kataoka has now been appointed as artistic director of the 21st Biennale of Sydney in 2018.

Koyo Kouoh

Koyo Kouoh is the founding artistic director of RAW Material Company, a center for art, knowledge and society in Dakar, Senegal, and the curator of 1:54 Contemporary African Art Fair in London and New York. She was recently appointed Artistic Director of Fabrica de Sabao, an art & innovation initiative in Luanda, Angola. Kouoh’s engaging theoretical, exhibition making and production practice has significantly contributed to a shift of paradigm in global curatorial perspectives of recent years.  She was the curator of Still (the) Barbarians, the 37th EVA International, Ireland’s Biennial, and is the initiator of RAW Académie, an international study programme for artistic research and curatorial inquiry in Dakar. Besides her curatorial practice, she maintains a relentless addiction to shoes, textiles and foods. 

Jérôme Sans

Photographed by Marco Ventimiglia

Jérôme Sans is a curator, art critic, artistic director and director of renowned institutions. He was the co-founder and co-director of the acclaimed Palais de Tokyo in Paris from 1999 to 2006. He subsequently assumed the role of director of programs at the BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art in Newcastle (UK). From 2008 to 2012, he was the former director of the ground-breaking Ullens Center for Contemporary Art in Beijing (UCCA).

Jérôme Sans has curated numerous major exhibitions around the world, including the Taipei Biennial (2000), the Lyon Biennial (2005), and the Nuit Blanche in Paris (2006), and is the author of several books, including Au Sujet de/About Daniel Buren (Flammarion, 1998); Araki (Taschen, 2001); China Talks (Timezone 8, 2009) and China: The New Generation (Skira, 2014) etc.

He is involved as artistic director in several major urban projects, such as the Rives de Saône-River Movie in Lyon, and, from 2015 until 2017, the Grand Paris Express cultural project. He was recently appointed as director of the future cultural pole of the Ile Seguin in the greater Paris region.

Jérôme Sans is also co-founder of Perfect Crossovers Ltd., a Beijing-based consultancy for specific cultural projects between China and the rest of the world. 

Photo: Sam Samore.

Jochen Volz

Photographed by Leo Eloy/Estúdio Garagem/ Fundação Bienal de São Paulo

Jochen Volz is the curator of the 32nd Bienal de São Paulo and of the Brazilian Pavilion at the 57th Biennale di Venezia. Prior he served as Head of Programmes at the Serpentine Galleries in London (2012-2015); Artistic Director at Instituto Inhotim (2005-2012); and curator at Portikus in Frankfurt (2001-2004). Trained in art history, communication and pedagogy, Volz was co-curator of the international exhibition of the 53rd Biennale di Venezia (2009) and the 1st Aichi Triennial in Nagoya (2010) and guest curator of the 27th Bienal de São Paulo (2006), besides having contributed to numerous other exhibitions throughout the world. Volz has recently been appointed as the General Director of the Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo, taking post in May 2017. He lives in São Paulo, Brazil.