Mariella Franzoni
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Mariella Franzoni is a contemporary art curator and advisor based in Barcelona. She holds a PhD from the Pompeu Fabra University (Barcelona) and, in the past 13 years, has operated in the field of contemporary art transversally, between academic research and professional practice, in collaboration with international art galleries, festivals, museums, private collectors and art businesses.
She is currently guest curator at the Investec Cape Town Art Fair, local advisor for The Cultivist, building liaison with barcelona-based art collectors. Between 2021 and 2022 she joined The Art Büro, providing the art advisory startup with an unparalleled network of 40+ art galleries across Spain, while advising new art buyers and introducing them to the culture of collecting contemporary art. For TAB, she curated the private-sale exhibition ‘Mirror to the City’ (Barcelona, 2021), bringing together rare modern avant-garde masterpieces and emblematic artworks by living established and emerging artists from the Spanish art scene. She has curated exhibitions and programs for independent art spaces and art galleries since 2014.
She is currently guest curator at the Investec Cape Town Art Fair, local advisor for The Cultivist, building liaison with barcelona-based art collectors. Between 2021 and 2022 she joined The Art Büro, providing the art advisory startup with an unparalleled network of 40+ art galleries across Spain, while advising new art buyers and introducing them to the culture of collecting contemporary art. For TAB, she curated the private-sale exhibition ‘Mirror to the City’ (Barcelona, 2021), bringing together rare modern avant-garde masterpieces and emblematic artworks by living established and emerging artists from the Spanish art scene. She has curated exhibitions and programs for independent art spaces and art galleries since 2014.
While living between Europe and South Africa, Mariella has been a fellow PhD researcher at the Center of Humanities Research, UWC (Cape Town), and was a conference speaker and moderator at institutions and organisations such as the MACBA Museum (Barcelona), the Pompidou Museum and the Kandinsky Library (Paris), the AAVF African Art In Venice Forum (Venice Biennale), the TRANSCuratorial academy, KfW Stiftung (Berlin), the CDAN, Art & Nature Center (Huesca), the JAG Joburg Art Gallery (Johannesburg) and Goodman Gallery (Cape Town, Johannesburg, London), amongst others.
She published her doctoral thesis in 2019 with the title ‘The Economy of the Curatorial and the Fields of the Contemporary Art World: Curatorial instances and the market of contemporary art in and from (South) Africa’ – a dissertation that addresses the relationship between curating and the contemporary art market and look at the emerging of a market for contemporary art from Africa and the Diaspora since the end of the ’80s.
Last updated, November 15th, 2022
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