Fatoş Üstek is an independent curator and writer, working internationally. Ustek is co-founder of FRANK Fair Artist Pay with artists Anne Hardy and Lindsay Seers. Currently, she is commissioning art in the public realm in Nine Elms, London; curating 40th Akbank Gunumuz Sanatcilari in Istanbul and Reduction to Satire for NADA Curated; writing a book on reinventing 21st century art institutions. She acts as editorial advisor and contributing editor at Extra Extra Magazine, Chair of New Contemporaries, UK, board member of Urbane Kunste Ruhr, Germany; advisory panel for Jan van Eyck Academie, Netherlands. She is a member of the International Association of Art Critics AICA UK, ICI, IKT and founding member of the Association of Women in the Arts (AWITA). She writes internationally for art publications, exhibition catalogues; lectures at Graduate and Postgraduate Programmes. Ustek sits on selection and nomination committees for various national and international prizes including Jindrich Chalupecky Award 2022 – 2024, Scotland in Venice 2022, Dutch Pavilion 2022, Arts Foundation Futures Award 2021, Turner Prize Bursaries 2020, Celeste Art Prize 2017, and acted as an external member of the acquisitions committee for the Arts Council Collection (2018-2020). She regularly nominates for the Fourth Plinth, the Jarman Award, alongside the Arts Foundation Futures Award and international awards and residencies.
She ran art institutions in the UK, Liverpool Biennial and The Roberts Institute of Art. Ustek curated Do Ho Suh’s largest UK public commission (2018-2020), miart Talks 2018; Art Night, East London, 2017 and fig-2 50 exhibitions in 50 weeks, ICA, 2015. She acted as Associate Curator for the 10th Gwangju Biennale, 2014. Ustek is the editor of Unexpected Encounters Situations of Contemporary Art and Architecture (Turkish Only, 2012) published by Zorlu Centre, Istanbul; is author of Book of Confusions, 2012, published by Rossi&Rossi, London. She co-founded and edited online Contemporary Art Magazine Nowiswere with Veronika Hauer (2008-12).
She is listed in the celebratory Apollo 40 under 40 Thinkers section in 2018; included in Evening Standard’s Progress 1000 London’s most influential people in 2018 and 2017; Artlyst Power 100 list 2021, 2019, 2018, and 2017; Artsy The Top 20 Most Influential Young Curators in Europe and nominated for ICI Gerrit Lansing Independent Curatorial Vision Award in 2016.
In 2008 Ustek received her M.A. at the Contemporary Art Theory Department at Goldsmiths College London, after completing her BA in Mathematics at Bogazici University, Istanbul. Additionally, where she also acquired a degree from the Film Studies.
Fatoş Üstek
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