Mia Locks is a contemporary art curator, museum leader, and Executive Director of Museums Moving Forward (MMF).
Mia Locks is an independent curator and writer based in Los Angeles. [1] She co-founded and leads Museums Moving Forward, a data-driven research initiative to support equity in the art museum sector, funded by Ford Foundation [2] and Mellon Foundation. [3] [4] She serves on the board of Clockshop, an arts organization in Los Angeles. She is also an editorial advisor on the podcasts "Hope & Dread: The Tectonic Shifts of Power in Art." [5] " and The Art World: What If...?!" [6]
Locks' recent exhibitions include The Deep West Assembly Cauleen Smith (2024) at Astrup Fearnley Museet in Oslo and Miranda July: New Society (2024) at Fondazione Prada in Milan. Previously, Locks worked as a curator at The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (MOCA); Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; and MoMA PS1, New York.[ citation needed ] Most recently, she was Senior Curator and Head of New Initiatives at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. [7] Prior to MOCA, Locks was co-curator of the 2017 Whitney Biennial, with Christopher Y. Lew. [8] At MoMA PS1, she organized exhibitions including Math Bass: Off the Clock (2015); IM Heung-soon: Reincarnation (2015); Samara Golden: The Flat Side of the Knife (2014); and The Little Things Could Be Dearer (2014). [9] She also co-curated Greater New York (2015), with Douglas Crimp, Peter Eleey, and Thomas J. Lax. [10] As an independent curator, she organized Ulrike Müller: or both (2019) at Moore College of Art & Design in Philadelphia, and Cruising the Archive: Queer Art and Culture in Los Angeles, 1945–1980 (2011), with David Evans Frantz, at the ONE National Gay & Lesbian Archives in Los Angeles, as part of the Getty’s inaugural Pacific Standard Time initiative. [11]
Lock's writing has appeared in Artnet, Mousse, Afterall , Art Journal , and several exhibition catalogues including texts on artists such as Miranda July, Math Bass, Samara Golden, Shara Hughes, William Pope.L, and Carrie Moyer. [12] [13] [14] [15] She edited the first monograph of Samara Golden's work, The Flat Side of the Knife, published by MoMA PS1 in 2014. [16] She served on the faculty of the M.A. program in Curatorial Practice at the School of Visual Arts, New York from 2017-2019. [17]
Locks received a BA from Brown University and an MA from the University of Southern California (USC). She was a 2018 fellow at the Center for Curatorial Leadership in New York City. [18] [ citation needed ]