Chus Martinez

Academic and Professional Background

Born in Spain, Chus Martínez has a background in philosophy and art history. She is currently the Head of the Institute Art Gender Nature, Basel Academy of Art and Design FHNW in Switzerland, and associate curator of TBA21 in Madrid/Venice.

She is board member of CIMAM (International Committee for Museums) and serves on the advisory boards of numerous international art institutions, including Castello di Rivoli, Turin and 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, 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 The Complex Answer. On Art as a Non-Binary Intelligence, Sternberg Press 2023; Like This. Natural Intelligence As Seen by Art. Hatje Cantz Verlag (2022); Coding Care (edited together with Sabine Himmelsbach), Hatje Cantz Verlag, 2022 The Wild Book of Inventions, Sternberg Press (2020), Corona Tales. Let Life Happen to You, Lenz, (2021).

Upcoming exhibitions Search for Life, TBA21 at Thyssen Museum, Madrid; Doblad mis Amores, Collegium February 2023; Living in Joy, Art Sonje March 2023; Mathilde Rossier, Fondation Pernod Ricard, May 2023.

Motivation statement explaining what encourages you to join the Board of CIMAM

I wish to continue as a board member to contribute with my thinking to the necessary collective dialogue among art professionals. Bringing questions, new topics, reflecting on possibilities ahead, on the transformation of the social, cultural and economic conditions changing may help all of us to get stronger. Finding our social and political voice as a group and as a community is fundamental to make our sector relevant and also to create futures inside our field. I think I am capable of motivate other members and inspire people to continue working and aspiring for a free and equal society where art is one of its core elements. Art is experience and experience is the tongue of a world capable of addressing its problems without self-censorship.

Explain how you see the role of CIMAM in advancing contemporary art museums globally

CIMAM connect people and motivates professionals to see the relevance of their work and the collective potential versus individual performance. CIMAM today is very important because it offers a reference, not only as an institution, but giving access to individuals that once organize can transform the situation. Togetherness is one of the most important values of our present and CIMAM inspires art professionals to exercise union, attentiveness and collective action and imagination. As an association is flexible and able to provide responses and invent tools of learning, transmitting and communicating among us.

How would you help CIMAM advocate for museums in areas such as funding, membership engagement, and strategic initiatives to achieve its mission?

I am deeply motivated to engaged in strategic planing and find solutions that may strength our associative power.

If elected as a Board Member, what would be your main objectives or areas of action for the next three years for CIMAM to contribute to the sustainable development of the modern and contemporary art museum sector?

To continue creating tools of learning and languages of possibility among the many communities that conform our group. Showing motivation and elasticity towards the transformations we face is a quality of survival and renewal. Believing in professionals of the arts of all ages and ranks is key to conceive a healthier and strong art environment.