Théo-Mario Coppola

Photo by L. Rollinde – 2019

Through their firm intersectional stance, Théo-Mario Coppola supports discursive, community- and research-based methodologies by BIPOC, crip, queer and women art practitioners, anD frequently showcases time-based practices, including lens-based works and performances.

They collaborate with public, private and hybrid cultural institutions, organisations and platforms of different scales and governance approaches.

As imperative principles of their curatorial and critical work, they advocate diversity and inclusiveness along with anti-discriminatory and anti-oppressive practices.

Viewing aesthetic issues as inherently tied to social struggles, their curatorial practice engages with research-based, experimental, narrative and political forms. Théo-Mario Coppola is currently conducting research on the notion of 'commons' as developed by Elinor Ostrom. The research and the projects that result from it address the notion from a curatorial, theoretical and critical perspective. They examine experiences of concrete utopia, personal and collective narratives of emancipation, and initiatives of resistance, and how these enable the transformation of values in art, governance and society.

They have curated projects with works by 20th- and 21st-century practitioners including Aram Abbas, Pia Arke, Yasmina Benabderrahmane, Sasha J. Blondeau, Bouillon Group, Gaëlle Choisne, Augusto de Campos, Cian Dayrit, Braco Dimitrijević, Virgile Fraisse, Goutam Ghosh, Camilo Godoy, Renée Green, Petrit Halilaj, Délio Jasse, Zhanna Kadyrova, Amélie Labourdette, Randa Maroufi, Paul Mpagi Sepuya, Sophio Medoidze, Maria Nordman, Joanna Piotrowska, Karol Radziszewski, Lili Reynaud-Dewar, Hannah Ryggen, S-AR, Bogosi Sekhukhuni, Marinella Senatore, Trinh T. Minh-ha, Amalia Ulman and Baha Görkem Yalım.

After graduating with a double master’s degree at Sciences Po Toulouse, in Toulouse, France in 2013, Théo-Mario Coppola undertook a PhD from 2013 to 2016 on the impact of aesthetic and social values on art professionals' decisions, concerns and preferences, and was a teaching and research fellow in international relations, cultural studies and the history of political ideas at the same institution from 2016 to 2018.

They served as the editor of Crash Magazine in Paris, France, between 2010 and 2012. They strenghtened the magazine's transdisciplinary scope and wrote numerous reviews and in-depth interviews on and with prominent cultural personalities in contemporary visual arts and further afield.

They founded and directed Nexialism Centre of Research, an experimental-oriented no-profit platform operating in Paris, France, between 2015 and 2017.

Théo-Mario Coppola also founded and curated HOTEL EUROPA, an annual series of exhibitions and programmes (Vilnius, Lithuania in 2017, Brussels, Belgium in 2018, and Tbilisi, Georgia in 2019).

They concomitantly served as the artistic and executive director of CollezioneTaurisano, an international private contemporary art collection focused on political art and based in Naples, Italy, from 2017 to late 2018. During their tenure, they set out a collection development policy resulting in the acquisition of art works by Apparatus 22, Maxwell Alexandre, Charlie Billingham, Jota Castro, Aslan Goisum, Clara Ianni, Leigh Ledare, Isadora Neves Marques, Henrike Naumann, Opavivará!, Ahmet Öğüt, Naohiro Utagawa, Vera Vladimirsky, Tobias Zielony among others. During their tenure, they established a supportive strategy facilitating access to the collection and loans to institutions. They designed an annual contemporary art prize. In parallel, they were the artistic director of Primo Piano and Intermezzo, two private initiatives supporting international artists through a joint residency and exhibition programme in Paris.

They curated the third edition of the Nuit Blanche arts festival at Villa Medici in Rome, Italy, in 2018 and the eleventh edition of the Momentum biennale in Moss, Norway, in 2021.

In support of the Ukrainian arts scene and the members of its diaspora, together with Initiative for Practices and Visions of Radical Care, Beyond the post-soviet and La maison de l’ours, and in cooperation with the Bibliothèque publique d’information (Bpi), they co-organised the In solidarity with Ukraine special assembly at Centre Pompidou in Paris, France in 2022.

They took part in the What Are We Doing? Art in Front of Climate Change round table and are featured in the resulting video work by artist Dorian Sari at Kunsthalle Basel in Basel, Switzerland in 2023 on policy-making in favour of stronger sustainability measures by politicians and professionals towards and within the cultural sector, in the light of the artist’s commitment along with a group of activists at Fridays For Future.

Mobilising notions transcending the boundaries of aesthetics, cultural studies and political studies, they have contributed to exhibition catalogues and collective and monographic publications with texts published by Beaux-Arts Nantes Saint-Nazaire, Centre culturel Jean-Cocteau – Les Lilas, Le Fresnoy - Studio national des arts contemporains, Hatje Cantz, HEAD Genève, Les Éditions Extensibles, MÖREL and Primo Piano & Intermezzo.

Their reviews on art practitioners, books and exhibitions have been published by Antidote, ATP Diary, Crash Magazine, Critique d’art, Flash Art, SP–ARTE 365 Editorial and ZéroDeux.

Committed to the current, intersectional and transnational theoretical and critical debates on the transformation of methodologies, the foundation of new paradigms and the development of previously neglected areas of study, they have held lectures, courses and workshops at art schools, political studies schools and university departments (Sciences Po Toulouse, Toulouse from 2016 to 2018, Beaux-Arts de Paris (BA), Paris in 2016, Université Paris 8, Saint-Denis in 2018 and 2019, IESA, Paris in 2020, 2021, 2023 and 2024, Nuova Accademia di Belle Arti (NABA), Rome in 2020, The Alternative Art School (TAAS), online in 2021).

They have been a regular member of award and academic jurys and selection and funding committees, as well as board of directors.

Seeking to encourage fair and equitable work conditions in the cultural field, they have regularly provided expertise on curatorial and critical affairs including knowledge building, ethical governance, strategy development, inclusive management and greater diversity within the context of government ministry advisory groups and sectoral and umbrella organisations. In conjunction with fellow colleagues and activists, they successfully campaigned for the registration of the exhibition as an intellectual work in the French Intellectual Property Code and for the introduction and widespread use of a standard work contract between curators and French institutions therefore achieving further professional recognition for curatorial labour.

They are a member of CAAP – French Multidisciplinary Committee for Artists and Authors, CEA – French Association of Curators, AWI – Art Workers Italia, IKT – International Association of Curators of Contemporary Art, and AICA – International Association of Art Critics.

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