We are pleased to welcome Michael Wellen to CIMAM!
"We are living in a period of intense cultural, political, economic and social crises, but with them also comes possibilities for radical change and CIMAM is playing an important leadership role in that regard. Museums and contemporary art hold significant and respected spaces for creativity, free expression, and dialogue and as such are the critical drivers of shaping world cultures, bringing attention to historically underrecognized knowledge systems, and to reframing the past".
Michael Wellen, Senior Curator International Art, Tate Modern, London, UK.
"Over the last several years I've been following CIMAM with admiration for the fearlessly proactive roles it has taken. It has come to the defense of institutions under cultural attack; with initiatives like Museum Watch, CIMAM members are fighting against censorship, corruption and mismanagement. CIMAM has also generated toolkits and forums for creating leading models and best practices for the future, specifically to make art institutions more inclusive, and for making them more ecologically sustainable. I’m particularly excited by the work undertaken by the Sustainablity Working Group".
About Michael
Michael Wellen is Senior Curator, International Art, at the Tate Modern where he is in charge of all aspects of the displays of the collection across the museum. He leads and manages the whole curatorial team in building free exhibits, which receive over 4 million visitors annually. He has also curated numerous critically-acclaimed exhibitions at Tate Modern, including Philip Guston (2023), Lubaina Himid (2021) and Takis (2019), which he co-curated with Guy Brett. He is currently working on an Ana Mendieta exhibition for 2026.
As a specialist in 20th Century and contemporary art from Latin America, Michael led Tate’s Latin American Acquisitions Acquisitions committee from 2016 to 2022. He implemented a collecting strategy to address long-standing art historical omissions and to provide wider, more nuanced views of visual cultures from the Global South and its diasporas. He brought into the collection major works by Belkis Ayón, María Magdalena Campos-Pons, Paulo Nazareth, Abel Rodríguez, Fernando Palma Rodríguez, Rubem Valentim, and many others. Aiming to expand the mediums Tate collects, he led in collecting the largest selection of Ana Mendieta filmworks in a public museum, computer-based work of Eduardo Kac, a live performance by Tunga, and textiles, notably Cecilia Vicuña’s large-scale Quipu Womb and “arpilleras,” the anonymous patchwork pictures made in the 1970s by women living under dictatorship in Chile. These acquisitions introduced new display strategies, including the exhibition and research program ‘A Year in Art’, which involved showing the transnational and transhistorical impact of the military coup in Chile in 1973. Next year he will curate the next in this ongoing series ‘A Year in Art: 2050’ looking at artist’s visions for the future.
Before joining Tate Moder, Michael worked as Assistant Curator of Latin American and Latino Art at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston from 2011-2016, where he has worked with Dr Mari Carmen Ramírez on exhibitions, acquisitions, research and a variety of publications related to the MFAH Latin American Art Department.
Michael holds a BA in History and Anthropology from Rutgers University and an MA and PhD in Modern and Contemporary Art with a focus on Latin America, both from the University of Texas at Austin.
About CIMAM
CIMAM – International Committee for Museums and Collections of Modern Art – is an Affiliated Organization of ICOM.* Founded in 1962, CIMAM’s vision is a world where the contribution of museums, collections, and archives of modern and contemporary art to the cultural, social, and economic well-being of society is recognized and respected.
Join today, and take part in our network with almost 900 contemporary art museum professionals from over 80 countries.
Thank you, Michael Wellen, for becoming a member of CIMAM!