Independent Curators International (ICI) supports the work of curators to help create stronger art communities through experimentation, collaboration, and international engagement. Curators are arts community leaders and organizers who champion artistic practice; build essential infrastructures and institutions; and generate public engagement with art. Our collaborative programs connect curators across generations, and across social, political and cultural borders. They form an international framework for sharing knowledge and resources — promoting cultural exchange, access to art, and public awareness for the curator’s role.
Mami Kataoka

Mami Kataoka has been the Chief Curator at the Mori Art Museum (MAM) in Tokyo since 2003, where she curated Roppongi Crossing (2004), Ozawa Tsuyoshi (2004), All About Laughter: Humor in Contemporary Art (2007), Ai Weiwei: According to What? (2009), Sensing Nature: Perception of Nature in Japan (2010), and most recently, Lee Bul: From Me, Belongs to You Only. Meanwhile she is extending her curatorial practice in many international projects including 9th Gwangju Biennale (2012) in South Korea as the Joint Artistic Director, Phantoms of Asia: Contemporary Awakens the Past (2012) at Asian Art Museum in San Francisco as guest curator, and Ai Weiwei: According to What? (2012) at Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington DC, which will tour other North American venues. She was the International Curator at the Hayward Gallery in London between 2007 and 2009, and curated Laughing in the Foreign Language (2008) and co-curated Walking in My Mind (2009). She was Chief Curator at Tokyo Opera City Art Gallery from 1998 to 2002. Kataoka also frequently writes and gives lectures on contemporary art in Asia.
involved in:
Curatorial Intensive in Bangkok
ICI presents the inaugural Curatorial Intensive in Bangkok, developed in partnership with the Faculty of Fine and Applied Arts at Chulalongkorn University to coincide with the launch of its international postgraduate program in Curatorial Practice, and with the James H.W. Thompson Foundation.
read more »What Does it Mean to be International?
Developed by ICI in collaboration with the Mori Art Museum, the Curatorial Intensive: What Does it Mean to be International? will examine the current state of the Asian contemporary art scene within the larger global context.
read more »Thinking Contemporary Curating
The book’s author, Terry Smith, is holding conversations about his new publication with prominent curators and art historians. The next event is a closed-door conversation between Smith and Boris Groys, Global Distinguished Professor of Russian and Slavic Studies, NYU.
read more »TCC: Terry Smith in Conversation with Mami Kataoka
This is the sixth in a series of conversations with Terry Smith and prominent curators, during which they will discuss his new publication, Thinking Contemporary Curating and other relevant topics in curating today.
read more »Curator’s Perspective: Mami Kataoka
Mami Kataoka, Chief Curator of the Mori Art Museum in Tokyo, presents a lecture, “Into the Equilibrium: Understanding the Changing World from an Eastern Perspective,” for the fourth Curator’s Perspective of 2012, co-presented with the New Museum, New York.
read more »The Museum of the Future?: Curating Institutions
ICI and the Ullens Center for Contemporary Art (UCCA), Beijing announces the first Curatorial Intensive to be held in China.
read more »Project 35
Project 35 is a program of single-channel videos selected by 35 international curators who have each chosen one work by an artist that they think is important for audiences around the world to experience today. The resulting compendium is released in four installments and is presented simultaneously in an ever-expanding number of venues.
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