Mariana Leme is a curator and researcher based in São Paulo, Brazil. She holds a BA in Visual Arts (2016) and a Master’s in Art History (2021) from the University of São Paulo, ECA-USP. Under the guidance of Dr. Tadeu Chiarelli and with a CAPES federal grant, she studied the relationship between Whiteness, French visual culture and the work of Marie Laurencin. She is currently a PhD candidate at the same institution and is researching the relationships between artists and curators.
Between 2010 and 2014 she worked at the publishing house Editora 34, and was responsible for historical iconographic research for books about Brazilian Modernism and Contemporary Art.
In 2015 she joined the Museu de Arte de São Paulo (MASP)’s curatorial team, where she stayed until 2019. She worked on the research for the exhibitions Art in Fashion: MASP Rhodia Collection (2015) and Histories of Childhood (2016). She was an assistant curator of Toulouse-Lautrec in Red (2017), curator of Pedro Figari: African Nostalgias (2018), with Pablo Thiago Rocca and of Women’s Histories: Artists Before 1900 (2019), with Lilia Moritz Schwarcz and Julia Bryan-Wilson.
In 2022, she presented the exhibition A trama do limo [The Slime Web/Plot], by artists Bruno Ferreira and Eva Castiel, at the Mário de Andrade Library in São Paulo and was a resident curator at Casa Tato 5 (SP) and Mirante Xique Xique (BA). In 2023, she curated Renata Egreja’s solo show at Galeria Lume. She served as editorial assistant for two editions of the São Paulo Biennale, Though it’s dark, still I sing (2021) and choreographies of the impossible (2023).
Her texts and translations to Portuguese have been published in the following journals and magazines: Terremoto (Mexico City), seLecT (São Paulo), Revista de História da Arte e da Cultura (Campinas/Unicamp), Journal of Curatorial Studies (Bristol), Revista Rosa (São Paulo), Arte e Ensaios (Rio de Janeiro/UFRJ) and MADRAzine (Lisbon).
She is a regular collaborator with artists and galleries such as Janaína Torres (São Paulo), Felix Frachon (Brussels), Mendes Wood DM (São Paulo/Brussels/New York/Paris), ArteFasam (São Paulo/Belo Horizonte) Karla Osório (Brasília), Zipper (São Paulo), Lume (São Paulo) and Martins&Montero (São Paulo/Brussels).