Sally Montes (Mexico City, 1981) is an artist and curator currently based in Mexico City. She trained in Fine Arts at the Gerrit Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam. As a student she was the only one invited to curate an independent event for Documenta 13. Subsequently she worked with artist and curator Robin Kahn and the women of Western Sahara for Documenta 13.
Her artistic approach focuses on the abstraction of information, exploring its contraband forms, marking her interest in the intersection between art and communication. From 2016 to date she directs and curates the artist residency programme AKI AORA, based in Tulum, Mexico.
From 2022 to 2024 she co-curated with Rogelio Sosa the programme: "El Sonido que Atraviesa", a sound art residency at the Memorial of the Centro de Cultura Digital in Mexico City.
Currently, together with curator Masha Isserlis, she is embarking on the project "Flying Rivers", a long-term project, which takes its name from an atmospheric phenomenon linked to regenerative agriculture, alluding to the arts as an ecosystem.
Maria Isserlis (b. 1986, Kyiv, Ukraine) is a curator, art historian, and co-founder of the art platform A:D:Curatorial, based in Berlin and Dresden. She co-curated the exhibition “Kaleidoscope of Histories: Ukrainian Art 1912-2023” at the Albertinum in Dresden alongside Tatiana Kochubinska. Maria also serves as a guest lecturer at the Universität der Künste (UdK) in Berlin.Maria studied Art History and Media Science at the Friedrich-Schiller-University, during which time she began her curatorial career as an assistant curator in the Contemporary Art Department of the State Hermitage Museum. Simultaneously, she worked as a freelance curator for the Goethe Institute in St. Petersburg. After relocating to Berlin, Maria collaborated with the Haus am Waldsee Museum. In June 2013, she was appointed General Coordinator of MANIFESTA 10 in St. Petersburg, and later joined the curatorial team for Manifesta 11 in Zurich.
Her international curatorial work includes roles as Exhibition Director for “Space Force Construction” in collaboration with the Art Institute of Chicago (Venice, Italy) and co-curator of the AKI AORA research program (Tulum, Mexico). In 2019, Maria joined the curatorial team at the Albertinum in Dresden, and in 2021, she curated the exhibition Whatever happens, we must be prepared by Alban Muja at the National Gallery of Kosovo in Pristina. Beginning in 2024, Maria assumed the role of Curator and Head of International Relations at Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden.
