ABOUT
Katerina Gregos is a curator, lecturer and writer originally from Athens, based in Brussels since 2006. Since the summer of 2021 she is artistic director of the National Museum of Contemporary Art (EMST), Athens.
From the beginning of her professional activity, her curatorial practice has consistently explored the relationship between art, society and politics with a particular view on questions of democracy, human rights, economy, ecology, crisis and changing global production circuits.
She has extensive experience in the international art world. She served in directorial positions for both private and public institutions (see further down). She has curated numerous large-scale international exhibitions and nine international biennials. Most recently she was chief curator of the 1st Riga International Biennial of Contemporary Art (RIBOCA1): Everything Was Forever, Until It Was No More, which she also instrumental in setting up as an institution (the exhibition was selected by both ArtNet and Hyperallergic as one of the top 20 international exhibitions of 2018).
Gregos has also curated three National Pavilions at the Venice Biennale, Denmark (2011), Belgium (2015), Croatia (2019). Apart from her activities as an independent curator since 2016 she is curator of the visual arts programme of the non-profit, Munich-based Schwarz Foundation. She regularly publishes on art, artists, society and culture, in books, catalogues, and periodicals.
Katerina Gregos has previously served as founding director and curator of the Deste Foundation’s Centre for Contemporary Art, Athens (in addition to serving as the curator of the Dakis Joannou Collection, during her tenure at Deste), for 5 years. At Deste she curated numerous exhibitions both from the Dakis Joannou Collection as well as independent shows, most notably Fusion Cuisine, a survey of feminist and post-feminist art (2002). In 2006 she moved to Brussels after being selected as artistic director of the public arts centre Argos – Centre for Art & Media, following an international competition. She oversaw the extension of the exhibition space (having commissioned the Dutch architecture bureau MVRDV for the job). Among the projects she curated there were early solo exhibitions of Clemens Von Wedemeyer, the Otolith Group as well as the group exhibition (and book), Being in Brussels, the first exhibition in Belgium that brought together the significant number of international artists living and working in Brussels. Gregos also served as artistic director of Art Brussels for four years, where she was on the gallery selection committee as well as in charge of exhibitions, special projects, conferences, as well as the performance and music programme. She introduced the policy of inclusion of non-profit spaces into a commercial art fair.
Publishing & teaching
Gregos also regularly publishes on art and artists in exhibition catalogues, journals and books, and is a visiting lecturer at HISK: the Higher Institute of Arts in Ghent, and the Jan Van Eyck Academy, in Maastricht; recent guest lecturer positions have been at: Umea Academy of Fine Arts, Umea University (Sweden), Riga Art Academy (Latvia) and Newcastle University (UK).
Recent juries a.o.
Gregos frequently serves on international juries and selection committees, including more recently:
- Nominator for the Schering Art Award for Artistic Research, Berlin (2021)
- Jury, Pinchuk Art Prize, Kiev (2020)
- Advisor, High Line Project, New York (2019)
- Jury, Belgian Pavilion for the 58th Venice Biennale – which subsequently won a special mention (2019)
- Jury, Nam June Paik Prize (Germany, 2018)
- Rapporteur, Prix Marcel Duchamp, Centre Pompidou, Paris (2018)
- Jury, Irish and Finnish Pavilions for the 56th Venice Biennale (2017)
- Jury, MAC International Art Prize and Exhibition, Belfast (2016)
- Jury, Berlinale International Film Festival (Germany, 2016)
- Jury, Hasselblad Prize for photography (Sweden 2015)
- Jury, Belgian Art Prize (2014).
Symposia and Conferences
She also frequently participates in international symposiums and conferences including among others, at Tate Modern, London; Centre Pompidou, Paris; Ludwig Museum, Cologne; Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam; Art Basel, Basel & Miami; Frieze Art Fair, London; Artissima Turin, Istanbul, Berlin & Venice biennials; WIELS and BOZAR, Brussels and many others.
Boards and other advisory roles
Katerina Gregos has served on the Board of CIMAM – the International Committee for Museums and Collections of Modern Art – a committee of ICOM (the International Council for Museums).
Currently she is a member of the board of RIBOCA – the Riga International Biennial of Contemporary Art and Argos Centre for Art & Media, Brussels.
She is also currently a member of the Artistic & Steering Committee of KANAL Pompidou, Brussels, which will open in 2023.
Other
More than 400.000 people have watched Gregos’s TEDx Talk Why Art Is Important, on YouTube, so far.
She has been included in Flash Art’s list of the Top 100 International Curators.
EXHIBITION HISTORY
Modern Love (or Love in the Age of Cold Intimacies), Museum für Neue Kunst Freiburg, DE (2020); Tallinn Art Hall (2021); IMPAKT Media Organisation and Centraal Museum, Utrecht, NL (2021)
Maarten Vanden Eynde Digging Up the Future, Mu.Zee Museum of Modern Art, Ostende, BE (2021-2022) traveling to La Kunsthalle Mulhouse (FR), 2022
FAMILY Eriks Apalais and Guests: Marcel Broodthaers, Vija Celmins Andrej Tarkovsky, Orson Welles, and Ingmar Bergman, Latvian National Museum of Art, Riga, 2020
Croatian Pavilion, 58th Venice Biennale – Igor Grubić: Traces of Disappearing, 2020
Anatomy of Political Melancholy, Schwarz Foundation, Athens Conservatory, 2018
A World Not Ours, Kunsthalle Mulhouse, France, co-produced with the Schwarz Foundation (2017)
Performative Resistance – CCA, Torun, Poland (screening programme), 2014
Portrait of the Artist: Works and References, Higher Institute of Fine Arts, Gent, 2013
Speech Matters, the Danish Pavilion at the 54th Venice Biennale, 2011
Transit, Madre - Museum of Contemporary Art, Naples, 2010
E V+ A, Ireland’s Biennial, Give(a)way: On Generosity, at Limerick City Gallery, The Hunt Museum, Belltable Arts Centre, University of Limerick, Limerick School of Art & Design, and ten other venues, 2006
Regarding Denmark, commissioned and produced by the Danish Arts Council, Ileana Tounta Contemporary Art Centre, Athens, 2006
Curator of Present Future, Artissima, Torino (with Augustin Perez Rubio), 2006
Boite en Valise, Tbilisi, Georgia, 2006
Britannia Works, commissioned and produced by the British Council, Athens, 2004
Commissioner for Greece at ARCO, 2004 including the exhibitions Breakthrough! at Alcala 31 and 9 Muses, I Presume?
Commissioner for Greece at ARCO, Madrid, 2004
including the exhibitions Breakthrough: Greece 2004, Contemporary Perspectives in the Visual Arts, Consejeria de Madrid/Alacala 31, Madrid (co-curated with Denys Zacharopoulos and Sania Papa) and 9 Muses I Presume: Recent Video Art from Greece, La Casa Encendida, Madrid.
The Mediterraneans, MACRO – Museum of Contemporary Art, Rome; co-curated with Zdenka Badovinec, Ami Barak, Dobrila Denegri, Mai Abu ElDahab, Vasif Kortun, Gianfranco Maraniello, David G. Torres, Sarit Shapira, and Jalal Toufic (Lebanon), 2004
VZ2 – Video Zone 2, International Video Art Biennial, Center for Contemporary Art, Tel Aviv (guest curator), 2004
In The Gorges of the Balkans, Museum Fridericianum, Kassel (advisor), 2003
Fusion Cuisine (reconsidering Feminism), Deste Foundation, Centre for Contemporary Art, 2002
Shortcuts: 49 artists from the Dakis Joannou Collection, Municipal Arts, Centre, Old Power Plant, Nicosia, Cyprus, 2001
Selected solo exhibitions include:
Clemens Von Wedemeyer, The Otolith Group, Lonnie van Brummelen & Siebren de Haan (Argos – Centre for Art & Media, Brussels), Alfredo Jaar (ING Cultural Centre, Brussels), Zafos Xagoraris (NEON Foundation, Athens), Maria Papadimitriou (Reina Sofia Museum, Madrid), Sara Cirací (MACRO – Museum of Contemporary Art, Rome).