Maria Finders

Maria Finders born in Athens, Greece in 1959, lives and works between Amsterdam, Arles and Paris. She is the curator of LUMA Days for LUMA Arles. After her studies in History of Film and Art at Queens University (Kingston, Ontario) and at the Concordia University (Montreal, Quebec), and in drawing and painting at the Paris School of Beaux Arts, Maria Finders began a 30-year career that has mixed art, business and technology. In 2002, she joined Art Basel to create and develop the Art Basel Conversations which she directed in Basel and in Miami Beach (2002 to 2008) together with Hans Ulrich Obrist. After joining Brunswick Arts as European Director, she was their Strategic Consultant in Communications and Culture, later creating and organising the Global Art Forum for Art Dubai – Qatar and Dubai, from 2007 to 2009. In 2005, as part of her functions at Brunswick Arts, later at the OMA/AMO, Finders began a decade of projects for the Venice Biennale: she was Art correspondent in 2009 for Daniel Birnbaum and Architectural Correspondent for Rem Koolhaas in 2014, as well as for 10 national pavilions including those of Saudi Arabia, Israel, Greece, Spain, the UK, ADACH… Elsewhere in Venice she followed the Axel Vervoordt projects in the Fortuny Palazzo, from the conception of Art Tempo in 2007 until TRA: Edge of Becoming in 2011. After creating the international Symposium A2B, Architecture to Basel in 2001, for the Messe Basel Swissbau, Finders continued to follow a part of her career linked to architecture by working on the strategy and campaign for the Aga Khan Architecture Award and for the Mies Award. Between 2011 and 2014, she was part of the Rem Koolhaas team at OMA/AMO as Director of the Cultural and Creative Council, developing a project with and for the Galeries Lafayette and Lafayette Anticipation (Foundation Strategy and Building, a number of exhibitions and new kinds of typology), as well as for Audi, the 360 Mall in Koweit, and the AMO Workshops, amongst others.