Ute Meta Bauer

Biography

Ute Meta Bauer is a curator of exhibitions and presentations on contemporary art, film, video and sound that connect artistic work with other disciplines. Since 2013, Bauer has served as Founding Director of the NTU Centre for Contemporary Art (NTU CCA) Singapore and as a professor in the NTU School of Art, Design and Media.

At the NTU CCA Singapore, Bauer has curated and co-curated The Posthuman City: Climates. Habitats. Environments (2019–2020), Siah Armajani: Spaces for the Public. Spaces for Democracy (2019), Trees of Life: Knowledge in Material (2018), Stagings. Soundings. Readings. Free Jazz (2018), The Oceanic (2017–2018), Tarek Atoui: The Ground: From the Land to the Sea (2018), Allan Sekula: Fish Story, to be continued (2015) and Ghosts and Spectres – Shadows of History (2017). In 2015, she and Paul Ha, director of the MIT List Centre for Visual Art, co-curated a presentation of the work of artist Joan Jonas for the US Pavilion at the 56th Venice Biennale. The exhibition received a Special Mention in the juried awards for national pavilions. She was artistic director of the 3rd Berlin Biennale (2004) and co-curator of documenta 11, Kassel (2001–2002), with the late Okwui Enwezor, who was artistic director.

Bauer has edited numerous publications, including The Impossibility of Mapping (Urban) Asia, with Khim Ong and Roger Nelson (World Scientific, 2019); Place.Labour.Capital, with Anca Rujoiu (Mousse Publishing, 2018); Thomas Saraceno: Arachnid Orchestra. Jam Sessions, with Anca Rujoiu (NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore, 2017); and South East Asia. Spaces of the Curatorial, with Brigitte Oetker (Sternberg Press, 2016).

Bauer served as Dean of Fine Art at the Royal College of Art, London (2012–2013). Previously, she was Associate Professor, School of Architecture and Planning at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, US, where she was the Founding Director of the Program in Art, Culture, and Technology (ACT) (2009–2012) and Director of the MIT Visual Arts Program (2005–2009). She is a member of various advisory boards, including the International Board of the Rockbund Art Museum, Shanghai; Bergen Assembly, Bergen, Norway and the documenta commission, Kassel.

Born in 1958 in Stuttgart, Bauer currently lives and works in Singapore.

SAF participation:
Sharjah Biennial 15