Draft:Naz Cuguoglu
Submission declined on 29 March 2026 by Gurkubondinn (talk).
Where to get help
How to improve a draft
You can also browse Wikipedia:Featured articles and Wikipedia:Good articles to find examples of Wikipedia's best writing on topics similar to your proposed article. Improving your odds of a speedy review To improve your odds of a faster review, tag your draft with relevant WikiProject tags using the button below. This will let reviewers know a new draft has been submitted in their area of interest. For instance, if you wrote about a female astronomer, you would want to add the Biography, Astronomy, and Women scientists tags. Editor resources
|  |
Comment: In accordance with Wikipedia's Conflict of interest guideline, I disclose that I have a conflict of interest regarding the subject of this article. Reddragonbluesea (talk) 18:44, 29 March 2026 (UTC)
 | This article may incorporate text from a large language model, which is prohibited in Wikipedia articles. (March 2026) |
Naz Cuguoglu | |
|---|---|
| Born | Istanbul, Turkey |
| Alma mater | California College of the Arts, Koc University |
| Occupations | Curator and writer |
| Employer | Asian Art Museum |
| Website | https://nazcuguoglu.com/ |
Naz Cuguoglu
[edit]Naz Cuguoğlu is a curator of contemporary art based in San Francisco. She is Curator of Contemporary Art at the Asian Art Museum, where her work engages themes of intersectional identities and diasporic experiences. Cuguoğlu earned an MA in Curatorial Practice from California College of the Arts in San Francisco. She holds a BA in Psychology and an MA in Social Psychology from Koç University in Istanbul.
Career
[edit]Cuguoğlu’s curatorial practice engages questions of diaspora, identity, and collective cultural production, often working across institutional and independent contexts. Her work spans exhibitions, public programs, research initiatives, and collaborative platforms.
She is a co-founder of Collective Çukurcuma, an interdisciplinary platform established in Istanbul that brings together artists, writers, and researchers through exhibitions, reading groups, and public programs.[1] Through this platform, she has developed collaborative and process-based approaches to curating, often emphasizing collective authorship and experimental formats.[2]
Her curatorial projects include exhibitions such as Identity Lab,[3] House of Wisdom, and Ghosts,[4] which engage themes of memory, migration, and cultural transmission through research-driven and site-responsive formats.
Prior to her role at the Asian Art Museum, Cuguoğlu held positions at KADIST, the Wattis Institute, the de Young Museum, and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. During this period, she contributed to exhibitions and research-based curatorial projects across institutional and independent contexts.
Her work has been presented at institutions and platforms including Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Framer Framed, D21 Kunstraum Leipzig, and Red Bull Art Around Istanbul, as well as programs associated with documenta fifteen,[5] the 15th Istanbul Biennial, the Taiwan Pavilion at the Venice Biennale,[6] the 4th Istanbul Design Biennial, and Haus der Kulturen der Welt.
In 2024, she was appointed to co-curate the inaugural American Pavilion at the Gwangju Biennale, titled Rhythmic Vibrations.[7] The exhibition brought together artists working across sound and rhythm as cultural and political forms.[8]
At the Asian Art Museum, she curated Rave into the Future: Art in Motion (2025–2026), an exhibition examining rave culture as a site of collective experience, sound, and sociality.[9][10][11] The exhibition featured artists including Morehshin Allahyari, Sophia Al Maria, Meriem Bennani, Fatima Al Qadiri, and others.[12][13][14]
Her work at the museum has also included Into View: New Voices, New Stories—Speculative Fabulation,[15] Bernice Bing Open Call,[16] Art Terrace,[17] and Hyde Street Mural Projects[18] all of which foreground contemporary artistic practices engaging narrative, identity, and speculative frameworks.
Curatorial approach
[edit]Cuguoğlu approaches curating as a collaborative and process-based practice. Her work frequently foregrounds collective participation, exploring how exhibitions function as sites of sociality, exchange, and shared experience.
Her projects often integrate sound, performance, and movement, engaging with forms of knowledge produced through embodied and communal practices. In interviews, she has described curatorial work as shaped through dialogue and collaboration, positioning institutions as spaces for gathering and exchange.[19][20][21]
Writing and publications
[edit]Cuguoğlu has contributed writing to Hyperallergic, Art Asia Pacific, SFMOMA Open Space, and Nka: Journal of Contemporary African Art.
She has co-edited several publications, including Proximities: Folded Readings on the Archival (Haus der Kulturen der Welt, 2022), The Word for World is Forest (Wattis Institute, 2020), Between Places (Verkstad Konsthall, 2016), and After Alexandria, the Flood (Umur, 2015).
Her poems have appeared in samfiftyfour, Onomatopee, Crowstep Poetry Journal, The Poetry Center at SF State, Tent Press, and Bog Bodies Press.
Lectures and public engagement
[edit]Cuguoğlu has lectured at institutions including Tate Modern, the University of California, Berkeley, NYU Abu Dhabi, Rhode Island School of Design, SALT, Fotogalleriet Oslo, Norrköping Art Museum, and the San Francisco Art Institute.
She has served as a juror and nominator for organizations including Creative Capital, Headlands Center for the Arts, the Joan Mitchell Foundation, and the Prince Claus Fund.
Selected exhibitions
[edit]- Rave into the Future: Art in Motion, Asian Art Museum
- Rhythmic Vibrations, American Pavilion, Gwangju Biennale
- Into View: New Voices, New Stories—Speculative Fabulation, Asian Art Museum
- Public Program for the Taiwan Pavilion at the Venice Biennale
- Gender, Humor, Solidarity! at Documenta Fifteen
- House of Wisdom, 15th Istanbul Biennial's public program, Nottingham Trent University (2018), Framer Framer (Amsterdam, 2017), and Dzialdov (Berlin, 2017).
- Ghosts: Red Bull Art Around Istanbul
- Identity Lab, Norrköping Art Museum
- After Alexandria, the Flood, 5533[22]
Awards and recognition
[edit]Cuguoğlu received the Curatorial Research Award by Andy Warhol Foundation, Tremaine Foundation, Villa Albertine, the Association of Art Museum Curators Propel Award, 2018 Fatoş Büyükkuşoğlu Powerful Women Award, and Turkish Cultural Foundation Cultural Exchange Award 2016.
References
[edit]- ↑ Khandelwal, Payal. "Interview: Naz Cuguoğlu and Mine Kaplangi, co-founders of Collective Çukurcuma". Floating Magazine. Retrieved March 29, 2026.
- ↑ "CONNECTOR INTERVIEW: NAZ CUGUOĞLU + MINE KAPLANGI". Locate Arts. October 20, 2016.
- ↑ Onalp, Ceylan (May 20, 2016). "(Turkish) Bizim Muhitler: Yakın mı? Uzak mı?". Artful Living.
- ↑ "Red Bull Art Around in Arnavutköy". Hurriyet Daily News. May 7, 2018.
- ↑ "A two-day gathering on Asian Diaspora/American through the lens of gender, humor and solidarity". Documenta fifteen. Retrieved March 29, 2026.
- ↑ Kaplangi, Mine (3 September 2025). "Strangers Everywhere or Apocalypse is Always Now: Notes from the 60th Venice Biennial". Third Text – via Taylor & Francis.
- ↑ Carollo, Elisa (September 12, 2024). "The First American Pavilion in the Gwangju Biennale Questions Notions of National Identity". Observer. Retrieved March 29, 2026.
- ↑ Chow, Vivienne (October 30, 2024). "Six Breakout Stars of the Gwangju Biennale—And How to Acquire Them". Artnet.
- ↑ Tsui, Bonnie (October 14, 2025). "At the Asian Art Museum, a Rave Reimagined". New York Times.
- ↑ Mondros, Sam (November 16, 2025). "Eight must-see art shows in the Bay Area this fall". San Francisco Standard.
- ↑ Tang, Clara (12 January 2026). "Dancing Out Of Step: Group Show at the Asian Art Museum". Canvas.
- ↑ Boas, Natasha (January 16, 2026). "What to See During San Francisco Art Week". Hyperallergic.
- ↑ Hwang, Sarah (January 7, 2026). "Rave into the Future at the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco". Variable West.
- ↑ "Asian Art Museum's "Rave Into the Future" reimagines the dance floor as a force for social change". KTVU. November 26, 2025.
- ↑ Cheang, Ko Lyn (Jan 20, 2024). "Barrier-breaking exhibition at S.F.'s Asian Art Museum empowers Asian, AAPI artists". San Francisco Chronicle.
- ↑ Wilson, Emily (Sep 26, 2022). "Bernice Bing Steps into View". Alta Journal.
- ↑ Bravo, Tony (Oct 10, 2023). "What you need to know about Asian Art Museum's East West Bank Art Terrace". San Francisco Chronicle.
- ↑ "Community Feast". Asian Art Museum. Retrieved March 29, 2026.
- ↑ Carey, Brainard (October 24, 2019). "Interview with Naz Cuguoglu". Yale University Radio.
- ↑ Kaplangi, Mine (17 March 2015). "INTERVIEW: NAZ CUGUOĞLU". Artfridge.
- ↑ Antakly, Leila (Sep 14, 2019). "Interview with Naz Cuguoglu". Medium.
- ↑ Zizlsperger, Anna (March 31, 2016). "AFTER ALEXANDRIA, THE FLOOD – INTERVIEW WITH NAZ CUGUOĞLU". Exhibist.
Category:Art curators Category:Art writers Category:Living people Category:Writers from Istanbul Category:Arts administrators Category:Women arts administrators Category:Turkish emigrants to the United States Category:Turkish art curators Category:Turkish women curators Category:Turkish women writers Category:American curators Category:American art curators
LLM-generated pages with certain obvious signs of being machine generated may be deleted without notice.
Instead, only summarize in your own words a range of independent, reliable, published sources that discuss the subject.
See the advice page on large language models for more information.