bio

Kathleen Forde is the inaugural senior curator for Superblue (formerly PaceX), a new initiative spearheaded by Pace Gallery and dedicated to amplifying artists’ voices on issues that matter to us all, in tandem with the meaningful presentation of large-scale time-based art.

Prior to Superblue, Forde was the Artistic Director at Large for Borusan Contemporary, a collection-based space for media arts exhibitions, commissions, and public programming in Istanbul. During her tenure at BC she curated and toured numerous solo exhibitions by artists such as Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, Carsten Nicolai, Diana Thater, Bill Viola and John Gerrard, and collaborated with curators and institutions that include the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Espacio Telefonica Madrid, La Boral Gijon, and the Kunsthalle Darmstadt.

Concurrently Forde was working as an independent curator with various institutions both nationally and abroad, including the University of Michigan Museum of Art, the Frye Art Museum in Seattle, and Audemars Piguet on their annual art commission in collaboration with Art Basel Miami Beach.

From 2005 to 2012 Forde was the Curator of Time-Based Visual Arts at the Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center (EMPAC) in Troy, NY. At EMPAC she commissioned and/or produced a broad range of new work by artists that included The Wooster Group, Laurie Anderson, Japanther, Jem Cohen, and Ben Rubin, and curated exhibitions such as Dancing on the Ceiling: Art and Zero Gravity.

Prior to EMPAC, Forde was the Curatorial Director for Live Arts and New Media at the Goethe Institut Internaciones in Berlin and Munich. As Curatorial Associate and then Assistant Curator for Media Arts at SFMOMA (1999–2002), she co-curated the interdisciplinary show 010101: Art in Technological Times in addition to ongoing work with both temporary and permanent collection exhibitions.

She has also written and/or curated on a freelance basis for various organizations that have included the Eyebeam Center for Art and Technology; The University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA); Independent Curators International; The Transmediale Festival, Berlin; Kunstverein Dusseldorf and Cologne; VideoZone, Tel Aviv; the Rotterdam Film Festival; and the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

In 2010 Forde was a fellow in the 2010 Center for Curatorial Leadership (CCL) fellowship class and held an Alexander von Humboldt research scholarship in Berlin from 2002–2003. She earned an MA in Post-1945 Art and Theory from Goldsmiths College, University of London, and a BA in Communications and Art History from the Loyola College of Maryland. 

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