Sofía Hernández Chong Cuy

Sofía Hernández Chong Cuy (she/her) is a curator of contemporary art. She recently established Atresti.com, and is currently serving as the guest program director of the A&L Berg Foundation. Since 2022, she is a board member of International Manifesta Foundation.

Sofía regularly participates in jury panels and advisory committees. Among these are the 2023 Frieze Tate Acquisition Fund in London, the 2018 Hugo Boss Prize at the Guggenheim Museum in New York, the Montblanc de la Culture Arts Patronage Award in 2017, and the 55th Venice Biennial in 2013.

From 2018 to 2023, she was director of Kunstinstituut Melly in Rotterdam, the institution formerly known as Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art. In 2023, she was also a Mellon Visiting Lecturer in the Art History Department at CUNY Graduate Center in New York.

Previously, Sofía was the curator of contemporary art at Colección Patricia Phelps de Cisneros, a foundation with offices in New York and Caracas. She has also been director at Museo Tamayo in Mexico City; held curatorial positions in New York at Art in General and Americas Society; and worked as the artistic director and chief curator of the 9a Bienal do Mercosul (2013) in Porto Alegre. Additionally, Sofía has guest-curated exhibitions at several spaces and museums internationally, including CCA in Vilnius, Kadist Art Foundation in Paris, and MALBA in Buenos Aires.

Learning from Artists

This presentation on curatorial learning connects artist-led name-change initiatives with Melly’s institutional renaming in Rotterdam. Projects by artists Tania Bruguera, Mario Garcia Torres and Ken Lum, as well as a handful of exhibitions and current events are interlaced to explore symbolic and systemic transformations in society stimulated by art.