Clementine Deliss

Clementine Deliss is a curator, researcher and publisher, and holds a PhD in philosophy (on eroticism and exoticism in French anthropology of the 1920s). Early exhibitions include Lotte or the Transformation of the Object (Styrian Autumn, Graz 1990, Vienna Academy of Fine Arts, 1991), and Exotic Europeans (National Touring Exhibitions, Hayward Gallery, London). From 1992 to 1995 she was the artistic director of Africa’95, an artist-led festival of new work in all media from Africa and the diaspora coordinated with the Royal Academy of Arts, London, and over 60 UK institutions. For this she curated Seven Stories about Modern Art in Africa (Whitechapel Art Gallery, 1995; Konsthalle Malmo 1996). Since 1996 she has edited and published eight issues of the writers’ and artists’ organ Metronome moving each time to a different location including Dakar, Berlin, Basel, Frankfurt, Vienna, Oslo, Copenhagen, London, and Paris. Editions of Metronome have been supported by and presented at the Kunsthalle Basel, the DAAD, Berlin, the 100 Days of Documenta X, and the whole series was shown in 2002 at Galerie Chantal Crousel in Paris. A new production is currently being researched and produced in Paris based on Maurice Girodias of The Olympia Press. She has acted as a consultant for the European Union in Dakar and various cultural organisations, has held guest professorships at the Städelschule in Frankfurt, at the Academy of Fine Arts in Oslo, and conducted specific research projects through the support of art academies in Vienna, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Bordeaux, Bergen, Copenhagen, Malmö, Stockholm, and London. In 2002 she initiated “Future Academy” an international research collective investigating the global future of the art academy with students, and with the support of Edinburgh College of Art, Chelsea College of Art & Design, Srishti School of Art, Design & Technology, Bangalore, and associated post-institutional organisations in Senegal. Her theoretical interests include research into bridging mechanisms between artists working in different parts of the world, the status of the verbal in today’s art practice, and curatorial modalities that go beyond the exhibition. She currently lives in Paris and works both there and in Edinburgh.