Adam Carr (b. 1981, Chester, UK) is a Curator, Writer and Educator. Since 2004 he has curated over 70 exhibitions worldwide and over 150 texts and essays he has authored have been published by major museums, galleries and publications. He is Reader in Curating and Contemporary Art at at Liverpool John Moores University. He is also currently a guest lecturer for School for Curatorial Studies, Venice, Italy and the online plaftorm Collecteurs Academy who are based in New York.
Carr has curated exhibitions for Castello di Rivoli, Museum of Contemporary Art, Torino; Kadist Art Foundation, Paris; ICA, London; e-flux, New York; MOSTYN I Wales; Nomas Foundation, Rome; Depart Foundation, Los Angeles; Artissima, Turin; Midway Contemporary Art, Minneapolis and Arezzo City Arts Festival. In addition, he has served as a guest curator for Francesca Minini, Milan; Yvon Lambert, Paris; Artissima, Turin; T293, Naples; Meessen de Clerq, Brussels; Sies + Höke, Dusseldorf; Johann Konig, Berlin; Frutta, Rome; josegarcia, mx, Mexico City; Norma Mangione, Turin; Rodolphe Janssen, Brussels, among many others.
He currently holds a number of guest curatorial positions worldwide. He has recently curated ‘Other People Place’ a solo exhibition of the work of Ryan Gander OBE, which opened at Nuno Centeno, Porto in June 2021. In addition, he has recently curated ‘1-31’, an exhibition for Collecteurs, New York which was presented from January 2020 and remains open indefinitely. He is currently curating a number of group exhibitions to take place worldwide between 2023-24, among them ‘TYPE 01’, a large group exhibition to take place at FF Projects, san pedro, garza garcia, Mexico, opening in Spring 2024. In 2023 he founded new contemporary arts visual space and exhibition programme titled ‘Further Down the Line’ which is based in Liverpool – the first exhibition opened in May 2023.
From 2012 to 2017 he was Head of Exhibitions / Curator at MOSTYN I Wales (UK), Wales’ largest contemporary visual arts centre where he curated solo exhibitions of the work of Amalia Pica, Ryan Gander, Annette Kelm, Keith Arnatt, Kris Martin, Camille Henrot, Bedwyr Williams, Sean Edwards and Nina Beier, among others, as well numerous group exhibitions including ‘Return Journey’, ‘Y O U’ and ‘Dear Portrait’. His programme of exhibitions at MOSTYN also featured the ‘History Series’, a sequence of group shows he conceived and curated – with support from Heritage Lottery Fund and Arts Council, Wales – that investigated the rich heritage of MOSTYN’s building and the surrounding area, and used that history as starting points for the making of exhibitions in the present. He also initiated the ‘Uprisings’ programme, giving many artists their first solo exhibition in a UK institution.
From 2006 to 2007 he was Adjunct Curator at Kadist Art Foundation, Paris.
From 2017 to 2019 he was an advisor for Art Brussels where he sat on the International Advisory Board. In 2009, he curated ‘THE STORE’ for Artissima and served as a curator for ‘Present Future’, as well as an advisor for the fair’s performance programme. In 2014, he conceived the ‘Dialogues’ section for London Art Fair.
As a writer, he has had over 200 texts published on art and curatorial practice, contributing to a large number of catalogues and monographs which have been published by Wiels, Brussels; ICA London; Whitechapel Gallery, London; Centre Pompidou, Paris; Singapore Tyler Print Institute, Singapore; Renne Collection, Vancouver; Liverpool Biennial; and Gamec, Bergamo among others.
He is a contributing editor to Mousse Magazine and CURA. In 2019 he was appointed contributing editor of Collecteurs, New York for whom he also serves as an advisor for curatorial and editorial content. He was previously on the editorial board of The Exhibitionist, together with Hans Ulrich Obrist, Maria Lind, Massimiliano Gioni, Jessica Morgan and Fernanda Brenner.
He has served as a nominator and advisor for a number of prizes including the Paul Hamlyn Foundation Awards for Visual Arts; the Jarman Award; Becks Futures at ICA, London; the YCI (Young Curators Invitational) (headed by FIAC, Fondation d’Entreprise Ricard, and Institut Français) and Ars Viva Prize.
He has given lectures and talks at many of the institutions, museums and galleries mentioned above, as well as elsewhere, including a number of Universities and many conferences worldwide. He has given interviews for and appeared on BBC, BBC Wales, ITV and Channel 4 news