Maria Lind

Beginning with her early writing for the free entertainment newspaper City Nytt and subsequent art criticism for the national newspapers Svenska Dagbladet and Dagens Nyheter, Lind's writing developed as an integral aspect of her work as a medium to produce discourse, generate debate and attend to artworks and artists. She has co-edited numerous publications, producing translations and participating in efforts to reinstate the legacies of iconic women and feminist writers such as the Roma writer and activist Katarina Taikon (The Day I am Free: Katitzi, 2019; published in Russian in 2021) and Russian revolutionary Alexandra Kollontai (Red Love: A Reader on Alexandra Kollontai / Kollontai: A Play by Agneta Pleijel, 2020). The Greenroom: Reconsidering the Documentary and Contemporary Art (2008), Contemporary Art and Its Commercial Markets (2012) and Abstraction (2014) all address important tendencies in contemporary art, namely documentary approaches, commercialisation and abstraction. The anthology Situating the Curatorial, which she edited in 2012, takes a closer look at the notion of "the curatorial". Two volumes collect her writing: Selected Maria Lind Writing (2010) and Seven Years: The Rematerialisation of Art from 2011 to 2017 (2019). Her Konstringar: Vad gör samtidskonsten? (2021) published in Stockholm by Natur & Kultur, is an attempt at "popular education" on contemporary art in written form.

At Iaspis, Maria Lind organised a programme of symposia and seminars engaging with research and addressing conditions of production in contemporary art and collaborative practices. These included the symposia "Taking the Matter into Common Hands: On Collaborative Practices in Contemporary Art” (co-curated with Joanna Billing and Lars Nilsson) with, among others, Anton Vidokle, Chto Delat (What Is to Be Done?) and STEALTH.unlimited; "Citizenship: Changing Conditions” with, among others, Chantal Mouffe and Stefan Jonsson; “Why Archives?”; “New Relation-alities”; “A Fiesta of Tough Choices”, co-curated with Tirdad Zolghadr; “Travelling Magazine Table”; and the seminar series “Tendencies in Time”. During her tenure, she co-edited the report European Cultural Policies 2015: A Report with Scenarios on the Future of Public Funding for Contemporary Art in Europe commissioned by the European Institute for Progressive Cultural Policies and Iaspis.

Another defining aspect of Tensta Konsthall's programme was its institutional partnerships, which included collaboration with ArkDes in Stockholm, the Austrian Frederick and Lillian Kiesler Private Foundation in Vienna (an exhibition dedicated to the transdisciplinary designer Frederick Kiesler, annotated by Celine Condorelli); Migration: Traces in an Art Collection, in partnership with Malmö Konstmuseum; co-initiation and membership of Cluster (a network of eight contemporary visual art organisations located in residential areas situated on the peripheries of cities from Europe to the Middle East); and the networks Sibling Art Centers of Stockholm and Klister, comprising small- and medium-size art institutions across Sweden. Students from CuratorLab at Konstfack (University of Arts, Crafts and Design) led by Joanna Warsza were repeatedly involved in research and public programming. The Tensta Konsthall Text Prize was initiated in 2014, highlighting young writers from the Stockholm suburbs.

Together with Tensta konsthall's team (including Ulrika Flink, Hedvig Wiezell, Emily Fahlén, Asrin Haidari, Paulina Sokolow, Fahyma Alnablsi, Didem Yildirim, Asha Mohammed and Hanna Nordell), Lind transformed the institution into a new model for the art institution as locally embedded and internationally connected. She describes her approach as twofold: both as a practice of “digging where we stood”, and one of developing a multifaceted programme that would be relevant for professionals as well as others—“a generous edge”. This vision operated at multiple levels. The design duo Metahaven conceived the overall visual communication infrastructure for the institution, making a "mark" instead of a logo (for use on the website, exhibition handouts, and signage). A cafeteria was established by a local nonprofit organisation as a multifunctional place for hospitality and activities for new and regular visitors (as in the weekly gatherings "Swedish with Baby", or the Women's Café). The ephemeral Tensta Museum: Reports from New Sweden, initiated in 2013, collected and presented histories and memories in relation to the location and people living and working there. Art activities dedicated to children and talks focused on children's education were recurrent as well. Numerous local collaborations were organised, including with a local women's centre, the Kurdish Association, the Tensta Library, a home for elderly people, an allotment garden and schools in the area. Art and Shops (2018) was a collaboration with shop and restaurant owners whose business were located in the mall right above the konsthall, in whose premises art was shown. Art Treasures: Grains of Gold from the Public Schools of Tensta (2018) consisted of a yearlong exhibition of artworks belonging to the municipality, and borrowed from the local schools, at the konsthall; simultaneously a series of contemporary art shows were held at the schools.

The institution's programme was multifaceted. Among its long-term inquiries were Abstract Possible: The Stockholm Synergies, 2012, with, among others, Doug Ashford, Mika Tajima, Matias Faldbakken, Wade Guyton and José Léon Cerillo; The New Model, in collaboration with Lars Bang Larsen, 2011–ongoing, with, among others, Magnus Bärtås and Ane Hjort Guttu; The Eros Effect: Art Solidarity Movements and the Struggle for Social Justice, 2015. The konsthall hosted solo exhibitions (Iman Issa, 2013; Ingela Ihrman, 2016; Leonor Antunes, 2017; Naeem Mohaiemen 2017), group shows (Soon Enough: Art in Action, 2018, with, among others, Zhou Tao, Joar Nango, Alma Heikkilä, Marie Kölbaek Iversen, Amol Patil and Anne Low), and commissioned works (Transmission from the Liberated Zones, Filipa César, 2015–2016; Red Love, Dora García, 2020; Sometimes It Was Beautiful, Christian Nyampeta, 2018; A Table Becomes a Table with Candlestick Legs, Anne Low, 2018). The institution was also home to retrospectives (Marie-Louise Ekman accompanied by Sister Corita Kent, Mladen Stilinovic and Martha Wilson, 2013; Standard Length of a Miracle, Goldin+Senneby, 2016), art walks, seminars, and screenings.

From 2011 to 2018, Lind was Director of Tensta Konsthall, Stockholm; in 2019 she was co-curator of the third edition of the Art Encounters Biennial, Timișoara; in 2016 she was appointed artistic director for the eleventh Gwangju Bienniale, Gwangju. During the 2010s, she also held the position of Professor of Artistic Research at the Oslo Art Academy. Between 2008 and 2010 she was Director of the Graduate Program at the Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College; from 2003 to 2005 she was the Director of IASPIS (International Artist Studio Program in Sweden), Stockholm. From 2002 to 2004 she was the Director of Kunstverein München, Munich; from 1997 to 2001 she was a curator at Moderna Museet in Stockholm; in 1998, she was co-curator of Manifesta 2, Luxembourg. In 2009, Lind received the Walter Hopps Award for Curatorial Achievement. She has been an art critic at the national dailies Svenska Dagbladet and Dagens Nyheter, in addition to writing extensively for catalogues and other publications.

Maria Lind's tenure at Tensta Konsthall, in the Stockholm suburb of Tensta, showed the potential of a small-scale art space situated at the "periphery". It also exemplified her deployment of a methodology that she defined in a 2009 essay as "the curatorial"  – that which "emerges in the multiplicity of connections and layers, in how they are orchestrated to challenge the status quo, with the works themselves placed at the center of the project". "Consisting of signification processes and relationships between objects, people, places, ideas and so forth", the curatorial is "a presence that strives to create friction and push new ideas". Originally commissioned in 2009 by Artforum as the inaugural column in a series dedicated to curating, this essay has been influential in the field of curatorial studies and practice. Informed by Chantal Mouffe’s distinction between "politics" and "political", Lind's articulation of "the curatorial" uplifted the notion that curators and art institutions can play an active role in the public sphere.

Maria Lind's curatorial approach is highly versatile. She has challenged institutional structures, experimented with curatorial formats, and written, published, and taught extensively, working across a range of scales and contexts. From the creation of an independent art space in a shopping mall (Salon 3, together with Hans Ulrich Obrist and Rebecca Gordon Nesbitt, London, 1998–2000) to institutional leadership roles, Lind has engaged with the urgencies and specificities of place. As e-flux co-editor Brian Kuan Wood writes: “Using flexibility, duration, dislocation and displacement, and in particularly collaboration, each project is dealt with on its own terms, and the accounted for in a curated context. Indeed, while often conceived as isolated and structural solutions to problems posed in facilitating challenging work and making it public, from a curatorial perspective many of Lind's temporary and context-sensitive strategies can be considered paradigmatic in and of themselves.”

In 1998 at Moderna Museet, Lind initiated a series of commissions, Moderna Museet Projects, making a point scarcely explored at the time: alongside thematic and retrospective exhibitions, an art museum can engage with contemporary art in multiple and fluid ways, in sync with the artists’ needs and artistic processes. As part of the series, over four years, twenty-nine artists were commissioned to make new works for the temporary project space in an old vicarage next door to the museum, or in locations chosen by the artists. Among the artists were Koo Jeong A, Ēriks Božis, Annika Eriksson, Peter Geschwind, Tobias Rehberger, Emese Benczúr, Simon Starling, Ann Lislegaard, Jason Dodge, Douglas Gordon, Claire Barclay, Dolores Zinny & Juan Maidagan, Elin Wikström, Liesbeth Bik & Jos van der Pol, Esra Ersen and Philippe Parreno. At Moderna Museet Lind also curated What If: Art on the Verge of Architecture and Design with, among others, Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster, Jorge Pardo, Martin Boyce and Andrea Zittel. The exhibition was included in the book Show Time: The 50 Most Influential Exhibitions of Contemporary Art. Additionally, she co-curated a retrospective of Robert Smithson’s work and initiated the monthly monographic screening series Contemporary Film and Video. The latter occasioned the Swedish debut of moving image work by Jeroen de Rijke & Willem de Rooij, Pierre Huyghe, Monica Bonvicini, Matthew Buckingham, Fiona Tan, Jaki Irvine, and Deimantas Narkevicius, among others.

Education is an integral part of Lind's practice, and she has taught in various contexts since the late 1980s, from art history and fine art contexts to curatorial and writing programs. As the director of the Graduate Program at the Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College, she reshaped the curriculum to align more closely with contemporary artistic and curatorial practices, while also teaching coursework herself. She has taught two courses at Salzburg's Summer Academy. Since 2014, she has been a guest lecturer for the CuratorLab course at Konstfack (University of Arts, Crafts and Design) in Stockholm, and for four years in the 2010s she was Professor of Artistic Research at the Oslo Art Academy. She has also co-initiated several educational initiatives, including the Gwangju Biennale Infra-School and the Art Encounters Biennial curating course in Timișoara. During her tenure at Tensta Konsthall, the institutions supported and hosted artist Ahmet Ögut's The Silent University. Lind has lectured widely across the world since the 1990s.

Maria Lind (born in Stockholm in 1966) is a Swedish curator, art writer and educator. Since 2020, she has been the Counsellor of Cultural Affairs at the Embassy of Sweden in Moscow.

Maria Lind grew up in Stockholm and Sandviken, Sweden. Her great-grandfather Albin Lind [sv] (1901–1964) was active in the labour movement, employed as a metalworker for the mine in Riddarhyttan, and later a journalist and editor with a strong focus on literature and art. He was one of the founders of the arts advocacy organisation Konstfrämjandet, and his writing and art collecting have served as inspiration for Lind. From an early age, she showed an interest in culture, with libraries and the People's House (Folkets hus) movement, with its theatres and art institutions, becoming formative influences on her life. Before finishing senior high school at Brännkyrka gymnasium, she had begun leading guided tours of the art at the museum Prins Eugens Waldemarsudde. Lind received her MA in 1990 in art history and Russian from the University of Stockholm. The same year, she was accepted as a PhD student at the Department of Art History, University of Stockholm. From 1990 to 1994, she continued her studies in the history of ideas, semiotics and feminist theory at the university; between 1995 and 1996, she participated in the Whitney Independent Study Program, New York. Her tenure on the editorial board of the Stockholm-based art journal Index (1994–1998) provided what she has called a "second university". She is the mother of Primo Gillick Lind, born in 2005.