Karsten Lund

Karsten Lund is Senior Curator at the Renaissance Society at the University of Chicago, a non-collecting contemporary art institution with an experimental ethos and a long history going back to 1915. In this role he organizes exhibitions and performances, works with artists on new commissions, edits publications, and oversees public programs and a quarterly music series. He has recently curated or co-curated new exhibitions by Leah Ke Yi Zheng, Ximena Garrido-Lecca, Ghislaine Leung, Jill Magid, Isabelle Frances McGuire, and Lydia Ourahmane & Alex Ayed, among many others, and organized a number of speculative group exhibitions including “Palomar” (2026), "Fear of Property" (2022), "Nine Lives" (2020), and "Unthought Environments" (2018). In 2017, he launched Intermissions at the Ren, an ongoing performance series staged in the gallery space twice a year in between exhibitions. Karsten has previously worked at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago (MCA) and the Museum of Contemporary Photography (MoCP).