Mia Locks
Mia Locks is a contemporary art curator, museum leader, and Executive Director of Museums Moving Forward.
Career
Professional Experience
Mia Locks is an independent curator and writer based in Los Angeles. 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 and Mellon Foundation. 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." " and The Art World: What If...?!"Locks' recent exhibitions include The Deep West Assembly Cauleen Smith at Astrup Fearnley Museet in Oslo and Miranda July: New Society at Fondazione Prada in Milan. Previously, Locks worked as a curator at The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles ; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; and MoMA PS1, New York. Most recently, she was Senior Curator and Head of New Initiatives at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. Prior to MOCA, Locks was co-curator of the 2017 Whitney Biennial, with Christopher Y. Lew. At MoMA PS1, she organized exhibitions including Math Bass: Off the Clock ; IM Heung-soon: Reincarnation ; Samara Golden: The Flat Side of the Knife ; and The Little Things Could Be Dearer. She also co-curated Greater New York, with Douglas Crimp, Peter Eleey, and Thomas J. Lax. As an independent curator, she organized Ulrike Müller: or both at Moore College of Art & Design in Philadelphia, and Cruising the Archive: Queer Art and Culture in Los Angeles, 1945–1980, 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.