Talks: Nicholas Baume

Join Locust Projects and Oolite Arts virtually for a conversation with director and curator Nicholas Baume.

Nicholas Baume joined Public Art Fund as Director and Chief Curator in 2009. A native of Australia, his curatorial career began there with Kaldor Public Art Projects and later the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney. Previously, he was Contemporary Curator at the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford, Connecticut, and Chief Curator at Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston.

Over the past decade, Baume has led Public Art Fund through a period of significant growth and impact, confirming the organization’s place as the leader in its field. With a strong commitment to making urban space a platform for artists that is always accessible to the public free of charge, he has curated numerous exhibitions with significant international artists at different stages of their careers. Early Public Art Fund exhibitions include Kate Gilmore: Walk the Walk (2010) at Bryant Park; Statuesque, a group show at City Hall Park featuring works by Huma Bhabha and Pawel Althamer, among others (2010); the major survey Sol LeWitt: Structures, 1965-2006 (2011); and the blockbuster project Tatzu Nishi: Discovering Columbus (2012). Exhibitions in recent years include Ugo Rondinone’s Human Nature (2013) at Rockefeller Center; Tatiana Trouve’s Desire Lines (2015) at Central Park; the landmark city-wide exhibition Ai Weiwei: Good Fences Make Good Neighbors (2017-18); Anselm Kiefer’s first public project in the United States Uraeus (2018); Siah Armajani’s Bridge Over Tree (2019) at Brooklyn Bridge Park, Felix Gonzalez-Torres’s “Untitled”, 1989 at Sheridan Square (2019), and Pope. L’s largest performance piece to date, Conquest (2019), which took place across downtown Manhattan. Author of several major catalogues, he is a frequent public speaker on contemporary art, and has contributed essays and interviews to numerous publications.