Amira Gad is an

Egyptian Egyptian describes something of, from, or related to Egypt. Egyptian or Egyptians may refer to: Nations and ethnic groups * Egyptians, a national group in North Africa ** Egyptian culture, a complex and stable culture with thousands of years of ...

art curator, writer, and editor in modern and contemporary art and architecture who was born in

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

but grew up in

Saudi Arabia Saudi Arabia, officially the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), is a country in Western Asia. It covers the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula, and has a land area of about , making it the fifth-largest country in Asia, the second-largest in the A ...

. Most recently, she was Head of Programs at Light Art Space (LAS), a private foundation based in Berlin (2020-2023).

Career

At LAS, she curated exhibitions by

Ian Cheng Ian Cheng (born March 29, 1984) is an American artist known for his live simulations that explore the capacity of living agents to deal with change. His simulations, commonly understood as "virtual ecosystems" are "less about the wonders of new t ...

Libby Heaney Libby Heaney is a British artist and quantum physicist known for her pioneering work on AI and quantum computing. She works on the impact of future technologies and is widely known to be the first artist to use quantum computing as a functionin ...

, a
app
by

Judy Chicago Judy Chicago (born Judith Sylvia Cohen; July 20, 1939) is an American feminist artist, art educator, and writer known for her large collaborative art installation pieces about birth and creation images, which examine the role of women in history ...

and her program also included a series of dance performances b
Sharon Eyal & Gai Behar
(curated by Claude Adjil), an exhibition by Jakob Kudsk Steensen (curated by Emma Enderby), kickstarted Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg'
Pollinator Pathmaker
garden at Berlin's Natural History Museum as well a
LAS Online
a series of digital commissions. From 2009 to 2014, Gad was Managing Curator and Publications at Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art in

Rotterdam Rotterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Rotte'') is the second largest city and municipality in the Netherlands. It is in the province of South Holland, part of the North Sea mouth of the Rhine–Meuse–Scheldt delta, via the ''"N ...

. In her time at the institution, she curated exhibitions and public programs including the show ‘Short Big Drama’ with artist Angela Bulloch (co-curated with

Nicolaus Schafhausen Nicolaus Schafhausen (born 1965) is a German curator, director, author, and editor of numerous publications on contemporary art. Since 2012 he has been the Strategic Director of Fogo Island Arts, an initiative of the Canadian Shorefast Foundation to ...

in 2012), ‘The Temptation of AA Bronson’ (2014) and the 2-day conference I AM FOR AN ART CRITICISM THAT… held at Witte de With Center for Center for Contemporary Art and

Stedelijk Museum The Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam (; Municipal Museum Amsterdam), colloquially known as the Stedelijk, is a museum for modern art, contemporary art, and design located in Amsterdam, Netherlands.

Amsterdam curated with the-then artistic director

Defne Ayas Defne Ayas (born 1976) is a curator, educator, and publisher in the field of contemporary art and its institutions. Ayas directed and advised many institutions and collaborative platforms across the world, including in China, South Korea, United S ...

. Gad worked as a curator at the

Serpentine Galleries The Serpentine Galleries are two contemporary art galleries in Kensington Gardens, Hyde Park, Central London. Recently rebranded to just Serpentine, the organisation is split across Serpentine South, previously known as the Serpentine Gallery, ...

in London from 2014 to 2019. She curated exhibitions of work (and edited the accompanying publications) by artists

Arthur Jafa Arthur Jafa (; born Arthur Jafa Fielder, November 30, 1960) is an American video artist and cinematographer. Early life and education Jafa was born on November 30, 1960 in Tupelo, Mississippi and raised in Clarksdale, Mississippi which was hig ...

(2017), Lynette Yiadom-Boakye (2016),

Jimmie Durham Jimmie Bob Durham (July 10, 1940 – November 17, 2021) was an American sculptor, essayist and poet. He was active in the United States in the civil rights movements of African Americans and Native Americans in the 1960s and 1970s, serving on the ...

(2015), and

Hito Steyerl Hito Steyerl (born 1 January 1966) is a German filmmaker, moving image artist, writer, and innovator of the essay documentary.

(2019) amongst others. Her exhibition of Arthur Jafa's work ‘A Series of Utterly Improbable, Yet Extraordinary Renditions’ (co-curated with Hans Ulrich Obrist) toured to the Julia Stoschek Collection (Berlin, 2018),

Galerie Rudolfinum The Rudolfinum is a building in Prague, Czech Republic. It is designed in the neo-renaissance style and is situated on Jan Palach Square on the bank of the river Vltava. Since its opening in 1885, it has been associated with music and art. Curr ...

in Prague and the

Moderna Museet Moderna Museet ("the Museum of Modern Art"), Stockholm, Sweden, is a state museum for modern and contemporary art located on the island of Skeppsholmen in central Stockholm, opened in 1958. In 2009, the museum opened a new branch in Malmö in t ...

in Stockholm (2019).

Sondra Perry Sondra Perry is an interdisciplinary artist who works with video, computer-based media, installation, and performance. Perry's work investigates "blackness, black femininity, African American heritage" and the portrayal or representation of black ...

's 2018 Serpentine Galleries exhibition ‘Typhoon Coming On’ traveled to the Institute of Contemporary Art in Miami while the

Torbjørn Rødland Torbjørn Rødland (born 1970) is a Norwegian photographic artist, whose images are saturated with symbolism, lyricism, and eroticism. His 2017 Serpentine Galleries, Serpentine Gallery solo exhibition was titled ''The Touch That Made You'' and tra ...

exhibition ‘The Touch That Made You’ she curated in 2017 toured to the Fondazione Prada Osservatorio in Milan. Alongside working on exhibitions of modern and contemporary art, Gad was the curator working on the public commission by

Lee Ufan Lee Ufan (Korean: 이우환, Hanja: 李禹煥, born 1936 in Haman County, in South Kyongsang province in Korea) is a Korean minimalist painter and sculptor artist and academic, honored by the government of Japan for having "contributed to the ...

installed in Kensington Gardens in 2018, as well as part of the selection committee that appointed Japanese architect

Junya Ishigami (born 1974 in Kanagawa prefecture) is a Japanese architect. He acquired his master's degree in architecture and planning at Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music in 2000. Ishigami worked with Kazuyo Sejima from 2000 to 2004 at SANAA, ...

for the 2019 Serpentine Pavilion and the curator on Serpentine 2016 architecture programme that presented

Bjarke Ingels Group Bjarke Ingels Group, often referred to as BIG, is a Copenhagen and New York based group of architects, designers and builders operating within the fields of architecture, urbanism, research and development. The office is currently involved in a ...

(BIG), Asif Khan,

Kunlé Adeyemi Kunlé Adeyemi was born on the and is a Nigerian architect, urbanist and creative researcher. Adeyemi is founder and principal of NLÉ, an architecture, design and urbanism practice, based in Amsterdam, in the Netherlands. Adeyemi studied at th ...

(NLE),

Yona Friedman Yona Friedman (5 June 1923 – 20 February 2020) was a Hungarian-born French architect, urban planner and designer. He was influential in the late 1950s and early 1960s, best known for his theory of "mobile architecture". Early years Born in B ...

, and Barkow Leibinger.

Selected exhibitions

* Ian Cheng
Life After BOB
(2022) * Libby Heaney: Ent- (2022) * Judy Chicago Rainbow AR (2020) *

Albert Oehlen Albert Oehlen (born 17 September 1954) is a German artist. He lives and works in Bühler, Switzerland and Segovia, Spain.

(2019) * Hito Steyerl: Power Plants (2019) (curated with Ben Vickers, Kay Watson, and Amal Khalaf) * Sondra Perry: Typhoon Coming On (2018) * Abdulnasser Gharem and Heimo Zobernig: Subversive Forms of Social Sculpture (2018) * Torbjørn Rødland: The Touch That Made You (2017) * Arthur Jafa: A Series of Utterly Improbable, Yet Extraordinary Things (co-curated with Hans Ulrich Obrist), 2017-ongoing * John Latham: A World View, 2017 * Zaha Hadid: Early Paintings and Drawings (co-curated with Hans Ulrich Obrist), 2016 * Helen Marten: Drunk Brown House, 2016 * Angela Bulloch and Maria Zerres: Considering Dynamics and the Forms of Chaos, 2016 * HACK SPACE (co-curated with Hans Ulrich Obrist), 2016 * Simon Denny: Products for Organising, 2015 * Jimmie Durham: Various Items and Complaints, 2015 * Lynette Yiadom-Boakye: Verses After Dusk, 2015 * Julio Le Parc: Drawings and Games, 2014 * Reiner Ruthenbeck, 2014 * Blue Times (co-curated with Nicolaus Schafhausen), 2014 * The Temptation of AA Bronson (curated by AA Bronson, organised together with Defne Ayas), 2013 * Angela Bulloch: Short Big Drama (co-curated with Nicolaus Schafhausen), 2012

Other activities

Gad is a regular guest lecturer at Sotheby's Institute of Art in London and other art schools in addition to giving talks, leading masterclasses and workshops such as Frieze Academy's day-long event ‘How to Curate an Exhibition’.

Bibliography

Albert Oehlen
(2020) *

: ''The Art of Encounter'' (editor, Serpentine Galleries, Koenig Books and Lisson Gallery, 2019) *

: ''Typhoon Coming On'' (editor, Serpentine Galleries and Koenig Books, 2018) *

: ''The Touch That Made You'' (editor, Serpentine Galleries and Koenig Books, 2018) *

: ''A Series of Utterly Impossible, Yet Extraordinary Renditions'' (editor, Serpentine Galleries and Koenig Books, 2018) * John Latham: ''A World View'' (editor and writer, Serpentine Galleries and Koenig Books, 2017) *

Zaha Hadid Dame Zaha Mohammad Hadid ( ar, زها حديد ''Zahā Ḥadīd''; 31 October 1950 – 31 March 2016) was an Iraqi-British architect, artist and designer, recognised as a major figure in architecture of the late 20th and early 21st centu ...

: ''Early Paintings and Drawings'' (editor, Serpentine Galleries and Koenig Books, 2016) *''HACK SPACE'' (editor, Serpentine Galleries and K11 Art Foundation, 2016) *

Helen Marten Helen Elizabeth Marten (born 1985 in Macclesfield) is an English artist based in London who works in sculpture, video, and installation art. Marten studied at the Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art at the University of Oxford (2005–2008) an ...

: ''Drunk Brown House'' (editor, Serpentine Galleries and Koenig Books, 2016) * Angela Bulloch & Maria Zerres: ''Considering Dynamics and the Forms of Chaos'' (editor, Sternberg Press & Sharjah Art Museum, 2016) *Serpentine Pavilion and Summer Houses (editor, Serpentine Galleries and Koenig Books, 2016) * Simon Denny: ''Products for Organising'' (editor and writer, Serpentine Galleries and Koenig Books, 2015) *

: ''Various Items and Complaints'' (editor, Serpentine Galleries and Koenig Books, 2015) * Lynette Yiadom-Boakye: Verses After Dusk (editor and writer, Serpentine Galleries and Koenig Books, 2015) *

Willem de Rooij Willem de Rooij (born 1969 in Beverwijk, Netherlands) is an artist and educator working in a variety of media, including film and installation. He investigates the production, contextualization and interpretation of images. Appropriations and collab ...

, ''Character is Fate: Piet Mondrian’s Horoscopes'' (editor, Witte de With Publishers, 2015) *''The Crime Was Almost Perfect'' (editor, Sternberg Press and Witte de With Publishers, 2014) *

Erik van Lieshout Erik Gerardus Franciscus van Lieshout is a Dutch contemporary artist most widely known for his installations. In 2018, he won the Heineken Prize for Art. Biography Erik van Lieshout was resident from 1990 to 1992 at de Ateliers ’63 in Haarle ...

, ''HOME: Rotterdam Zuid'' (editor, Witte de With Publishers, 2014) *''Morality in Fragments'' (editor, Witte de With Publishers, 2014) *Lidwien van de Ven: ''Rotterdam – Sensitive Times'' (editor, Witte de With Publishers, 2013) * Angela Bulloch: ''Source Book 10'' (editor, Witte de With Publishers, 2012) *

Tariq Ramadan Tariq Ramadan ( ar, طارق رمضان, ; born 26 August 1962) is a Swiss Muslim academic, philosopher, and writer. He was a professor of contemporary Islamic studies at St Antony's College, Oxford and the Faculty of Theology and Religion, Univ ...

: ''On Super-Diversity'' (Copy-Editor, Witte de WIth Publishers and Sternberg Press, 2012) *

Miki Kratsman Miki Kratsman is an Israeli photographer, photojournalist and activist. Biography Miki Kratsman was born in Argentina in 1959. He immigrated to Israel with his family in 1971. He studied photography at Kiryat Ono College. His spouse is Israel ...

: ''All about us'' (assistant editor, Sternberg Press and Ursula Blickle Foundation, 2011)

Awards and honours

*Nomination for Women Leading the Art World, UK (

The Sunday Times ''The Sunday Times'' is a British newspaper whose circulation makes it the largest in Britain's quality press market category. It was founded in 1821 as ''The New Observer''. It is published by Times Newspapers Ltd, a subsidiary of News UK, whi ...

) *Winner of the 2019 Richard Schlagman Art Book Award in the category Outstanding Artist's Book * Winner of the AICA Award 2018
Exhibition of the Year
Germany * Winner of th
Sky Arts Awards 2016
Visual Arts Category, UK *Winner of the Best Dutch Book Design 2015, The Netherlands *Winner of the AICA Awards 2014: Exhibition of the Year, The Netherlands

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Gad, Amira German art curators German women curators Saudi Arabian women curators Art writers Living people Year of birth missing (living people) Saudi Arabian historians Saudi Arabian women historians Egyptian historians German women historians Egyptian women curators Egyptian women historians German women editors Saudi Arabian women editors Egyptian women editors