Barbara Vanderlinden

Barbara Vanderlinden is an art critic, editor, and independent curator. She began her career in the mid-1990s as co-curator of the contemporary art program of Antwerp '93, European Capital of Culture , under its auspices, co-organized the exhibitions New Sculptures for Middelheim (1992),[1] MIddelheimmuseum, Middelheim; On Taking a Normal Situation... (1993), MuHKA Museum van Hedendaagse Kunst Antwerpen, Antwerp; and The Sublime Void: On the Memory of the Imagination (1993), Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten Antwerpen, Antwerp. She has gone on to be the founding director of Roomade, Brussels (1996–2005) where she initiated and produced projects in collaboration with artists such as Mullican Matt Mullican under Hypnosis (1996), Carsten Höller, Boudewijn Experiment, Deliberate Experiment in Doubt (2000),[2] and Andreas Slominski (1997), and produced a series of artist's films and exhibitions such as Laboratorium (1999) co-curated (with Hans Ulrich Obrist).[3][4] In 2005, she founded the Brussels Biennial, and was the artistic director of it first edition Brussels Biennial I, “Re-used Modernity” (2008–09).[5]

Barbara Vanderlinden

She served as director of the 2008 Brussels Biennial[6] and organised multiple exhibitions as well as various international biennales including the Taipei Biennial: Do You Believe in Reality? (2004),[7][8][9] Taipei Fine Arts Museum, Taipei; Manifesta, European biennial of contemporary art (1998),[10] Luxembourg; Generation Z (1998)[11][12], MoMA PS1, New York; Indiscipline (2000),[13] Brussels 2000, European Capital of Culture, Brussels; The Fascinating Faces of Flanders 58/98 Two hours wide or two hours long (1998)[14] Centro Cultural de Belém, Lisbon. From 1998 to 2000 she co-curated with Adriano Pedrosa, Ivo Mesquita, and Cuauhtemoc Medina the defunct XXV Bienal de São Paulo,[15] São Paulo. She co-curated with Boris Groys The Art Judgement Show (2002),[16][17] Museum of Modern Art, Ljubljana, and more recently, In A 37 90 89: Beyond the Museum (2018–19)[18], MuHKA Museum van hedendaagse Kunst, Antwerp.

She served as Professor of Exhibition Studies and Director of the Exhibition Laboratory (2013–15) at the University of the Arts Helsinki (Taideyliopisto) in Finland where she curated the exhibition Laboratory of Hearing (2015).[19] Previously, she was Visiting Professor and initiator of the International Curatorial Programme (2001)[20] at the Gwangju Biennale Foundation, Gwangju, South Korea, and Associate Professor of curatorial studies for the CCS Bard Master of Arts Program in Curatorial Studies in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York, Professor of Exhibition and Museum Studies (2005–08) at the San Francisco Art Institute.[21]

Vanderlinden is the author of a reference book in the field of exhibitions and biennials stories in Europe called The Manifesta Decade: Debates on Contemporary Art Exhibitions and Biennials in Post-Wall Europe (MIT Press, 2005)[22] and co-author (with Francesco Bonami and Nancy Spector) of Maurizio Cattelan (Phaidon Press, 2003).[23]