Si­mon
Mraz

Si­mon Mraz (b. 1977, ba­sed ne­ar Vi­en­na, Aust­ria) is an art his­to­ri­an, cu­rator, and ex­hi­biti­on ma­ker. He is the co-fo­un­der of se­veral ini­ti­ati­ves sup­porting ar­tists at risk and ar­tists who ha­ve be­en for­ced to re­loca­te, inc­lu­ding ART­MOV (Ari­ad­ne's Thre­ad bet­we­en Mos­cow and Vi­en­na), ASoP Euro­pe (Ar­tists So­lida­rity Prog­ram Euro­pe), Of­fi­ce Uk­ra­ine – Shel­ter for Uk­ra­inian Ar­tists, and Sta­te of the Art(ist) at Ars Elect­ro­nica.

Si­mon Mraz works with the the Cul­tu­re De­part­ment of the Aust­ri­an Fo­re­ign Mi­nist­ry, whe­re he de­velops new for­mats for in­terna­ti­onal cul­tu­ral pro­jects that cre­ate op­portu­niti­es for ar­tists li­ving and wor­king in Aust­ria.

He is al­so a mem­ber of the cu­rato­ri­al te­am at Mu­se­ums­Qu­ar­ti­er Vi­en­na and le­ads cul­tu­ral pro­jects in co­ope­rati­on with the Aust­ri­an Cul­tu­ral Mi­nist­ry.

Over the years, he has ini­ti­ated and cu­rated a se­ri­es of art pro­jects exp­lo­ring Rus­sia's re­gi­ons in col­la­bora­ti­on with Euro­pe­an and Rus­si­an ar­tists. Be­fore Rus­sia's full-sca­le in­va­si­on of Uk­ra­ine in Feb­ru­ary 2022, the­se pro­jects we­re among the co­unt­ry's most sig­ni­ficant in­de­pen­dent ini­ti­ati­ves in the fi­eld of con­tempo­rary vi­su­al art. Sin­ce then, he has con­ti­nu­ed to sup­port in­de­pen­dent and cri­tical ar­tists from Rus­sia.

Pho­to by Frol Pod­lesnyi