Mariana Leme (1987) 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 with a research about curatorial practices and Process Art in Brazil.
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.
With artists Mano Penalva, Sérgio Pinzón, and Yuli Yamagata, she organized the two editions of the exhibition Arranjos, at SAO Espaço de Arte, in 2016 and 2017. In 2022, she curated A trama do limo, by artists Bruno Ferreira and Eva Castiel, at the Mário de Andrade Library in São Paulo and was resident curator at Casa Tato 5 (SP) and Mirante Xique Xique (BA). In 2023, she curated the group exhibition Trânsito-tecido, which brought together 19 artists from 10 Brazilian states at the Galpão 556 gallery, and also the solo exhibition of Renata Egreja at Galeria Lume. In 2024, she presented Interlúdio, an exhibition of three artists represented by WG gallery, and the solo exhibition of Nydia Negromonte, Desenhos são como sementes debaixo de tudo, at the Centro Cultural Unimed-BH Minas. In 2025, she curated the solo exhibitions Anna Bella Geiger — Limiar, at the Jewish Museum of São Paulo (in partnership with Priscyla Gomes) and IRIDIUM, by Débora Mazloum, at Espaço Abapirá, Rio de Janeiro.
She was a curator-in-residence in two editions of bab - Bienal Anual de Búzios, coordinated since 2007 by artist Armando Mattos. In 2025, in partnership with Mattos and Renato Pera, she coordinated the bab+Politics of Indigestion Seminar at the State University of Rio de Janeiro (UERJ). Also in 2025, she participated in the Mbónonhaga residency, at the invitation of the Tupinikim Guarani Indigenous Association (ES).
In 2021 and 2023, she served as editorial assistant for two editions of the São Paulo Biennale, Though it’s dark, still I sing and choreographies of the impossible. 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), MADRAzine (Lisbon), Amarello (São Paulo), and Propágulo (Recife).
She is a regular collaborator with artists, galleries and cultural spaces such as Janaina Torres (São Paulo), Felix Frachon (Bruxelas), Mendes Wood DM (São Paulo/Bruxelas/Nova York), ArteFasam (São Paulo/Belo Horizonte) Karla Osório (Brasília), Llano (Cidade do México), Lume (São Paulo), Zipper (São Paulo), Martins&Montero (São Paulo/Bruxelas), quadra (Rio de Janeiro/São Paulo) and Casa de Cultura do Parque (São Paulo).