Kari Conte is the Co-Artistic Director of the Medina Triennial and a curator, writer, and cultural leader whose practice focuses on global contemporary art and ecological and feminist perspectives. Based in New York and Türkiye, she has curated more than forty exhibitions and collaborated with leading institutions worldwide. Her artist-centered work spans exhibitions, new commissions, publishing, and residencies, forging long-term institutional partnerships and advancing socially and politically engaged practices. She currently holds curatorial roles at City as Living Laboratory (CALL) in New York and Kai Art Center in Tallinn. Additionally, she is Senior Advisor at the International Studio & Curatorial Program (ISCP), where she previously worked as Director of Programs and Exhibitions for nearly a decade.
Conte has curated solo exhibitions by Flo Kasearu, Fatma Bucak, Alban Muja, Sonia Leimer, Chiara Fumai, Hikaru Fujii, Jennifer Tee, Eva Kot’átková, and Richard Ibghy & Marilou Lemmens, among others. Her research-based group exhibitions include Aqueous Earth, examining humanity’s impact on water and biodiversity, and Concrete Truth, a survey of lens-based practices at the intersection of art and documentary. She has been involved in biennials for over a decade—as an advisor to the Helsinki Biennial and a guest curator for the Aichi Triennale and the Performa Biennial. She was a Fulbright Senior Research Scholar in Istanbul, held fellowships at Tokyo Arts and Space and the Getty Leadership Institute, and is co-founder of Rethinking Residencies.
She is part-time faculty at Parsons School of Design, The New School and has lectured and taught at institutions including the School of Visual Arts, Emily Carr University, The New York Public Library, Independent Curators International (ICI), ArtTable, New York University, Hunter College, Bard College, the Finnish Cultural Institute in New York, and the Sharjah Art Foundation, among others. Her curatorial projects have received coverage in publications such as ArtAsiaPacific, Artforum, Artnet, Artnews, Carla, Contemporary And (C&), Frieze, Hyperallergic, New York Magazine, Radical History Review, Tate Papers, and The New York Times.
Her writing has been published by Mousse Publishing, JRP|Ringier, Printed Matter, Sternberg Press, and the Sharjah Art Foundation. She has edited over twenty books and catalogs, including Bringing Worlds Together: A Rethinking Residencies Reader and Mierle Laderman Ukeles: Seven Work Ballets. Earlier in her career, she held roles at Whitechapel Gallery, the New Museum, and Artists Space, and earned an M.A. in Curating Contemporary Art from the Royal College of Art in London.
Further Reading
Mary Miss: Place as Medium (Sculpture Magazine, Summer 2026)
In the Spirit of Chiara Fumai (Metropolis M, 2022)
Ezgi Erol (Unlimited and the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, 2022)
Stutters, Dominique Hurth (Printed Matter, 2021)
Curatorial Residencies: Saying yes to who or what turns up (Goethe-Institut, 2020)
Localizing the Contemporary: The Kunsthalle Bern Model (JRP|Ringier, 2018)
Socially Engaged Art: History, Theory, Practice (Film Art Inc., Japan, 2018)
Mierle Laderman Ukeles: Seven Work Ballets (Sternberg Press, 2026)