About
Naz Cuguoğlu works as a curator at the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco, where her work explores themes of intersectional identities and diasporic experiences. In 2024, she was appointed to co-curate the inaugural American Pavilion at the 15th Gwangju Biennale and received the Andy Warhol Foundation’s Curatorial Research Fellowship Grant and the AAMC Propel Award.
She has previously held roles at institutions such as KADIST, The Wattis Institute, de Young Museum, and SFMOMA. Her writings have appeared in SFMOMA Open Space, Art Asia Pacific, Hyperallergic, Nka: Journal of Contemporary African Art, and other notable publications. As a co-founder of Collective Çukurcuma, she experiments with collaborative curatorial practices through reading groups and international exhibitions. Her curatorial experience includes exhibitions at Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, the Wattis Institute, Framer Framed, D21 Kunstraum Leipzig, Red Bull Art Around Istanbul, and programs at the documenta fifteen, 15th Istanbul Biennial, Taiwan Pavilion at the 60th Venice Biennale, 4th Istanbul Design Biennial, Haus der Kulturen der Welt, among others.
She has co-edited four books: Proximities: Folded Readings on the Archival (Haus der Kulturen der Welt, 2022), The Word for World is Forest (The Wattis Institute, 2020), Between Places (Verkstad Konsthall, 2016), and After Alexandria, the Flood (Umur, 2015). She has lectured at institutions including Tate Modern, the University of California, Berkeley, NYU Abu Dhabi, Rhode Island School of Design, SALT, Fotogalleriet Oslo, Norrköping Art Museum, and the San Francisco Art Institute. She has taken on multiple jury and nominator roles for international organizations such as Creative Capital, Headlands Center for the Arts, Joan Mitchell Foundation, and Prince Claus Fund.
Cuguoğlu earned her MA in Curatorial Practice from California College of the Arts, San Francisco, and holds a BA in Psychology and an MA in Social Psychology from Koç University in Istanbul. She is an active member of several professional organizations, including CIMAM – International Committee for Museums and Collections of Modern Art, the American Alliance of Museums, the Association of Art Museum Curators, and the Association for Modern and Contemporary Art of the Arab World, Iran, and Turkey (AMCA).
Interviews:
Juxtapoz
Alta
Curtain Magazine
Medium
Yale Radio
Onbironsekiz (TR)
ArtUnlimited
Petals
artfridge
Exhibist
Artful Living
Other projects:
Bernice Bing Open Call in Hyperallergic
East West Bank Art Terrace in SF Chronicle
Announcement in Art Daily
Warhol Foundation Curatorial Research Fellowship in Artforum
Into View in Gazette, 48hills, SF Chronicle, SF Chronicle, SF Chronicle, SF Examiner, NBC
Taiwan’s Public Programs at the Venice Biennale in Hyperallergic
Chelsea R Wong in Juxtapoz
Interviews with Collective Çukurcuma:
Locate Arts
Scandale Project
The Floating Magazine
Curatorial Portfolios:
Into View–New Voices, New Stories
East West Bank Art Terrace
Under the Waqwaq Tree
House of Wisdom
Identity Lab
Contact Info
nazcuguoglu@gmail.com