Juan Canela

Juan Canela

Spain, 1980. Lives and works in Panama City.
He is the Chief Curator of the Museum of Contemporary Art of Panama. He has recently been the curator of the Projects section at Artbo Bogotá (2024), co-curator of the 23rd Paiz Art Biennial in Guatemala (2023), and curator of El Patio ABC in Baja California, Mexico (2023-2024). Previously, he has served as the Artistic Director of ZsONAMACO Mexico City (2020-2023); Associate Curator at the Matadero Madrid Artistic Residency Center (2020-2021), and Research and Symposium Associate at the osloBIENNALEN FIRST EDITION (2019-2020). He was co-founder and co-director of the BAR project residency program in Barcelona (2012-2020) and has been part of the programming committee of HANGAR Barcelona (2016-2019). He has curated projects at museums, galleries, and institutions such as MAMM Museo de Arte Moderno in Medellín; Fundación JUMEX, Mexico City; CA2M Centro de Arte Dos de Mayo, Móstoles; TBA-21 Madrid; CRAC Alsace, France; Artissima Turin, Italy; Centro Cultural de España and Casa Quien, Dominican Republic; Tabakalera, San Sebastián; SOMA Mexico; or Fundació Miró, Barcelona. He has given workshops and lectures at places like Palais de Tokyo, Paris; Artpace, San Antonio; De Appel, Amsterdam; FLORA ars+natura, Bogotá; Khalil Sakakini Cultural Center, Ramallah; Bisagra, Lima; Instituto Di Tella, Buenos Aires; or La Casa Encendida, Madrid. In 2020, he organized, alongside Elena Ketelsen Gonzalez and Carla Acevedo Yates, the program Chotin: Curatorial Practices from Central America and the Caribbean, developed between MAC Panama, MCA Chicago, and MoMA PS1. He has written for specialized magazines and media such as A*Desk, Babelia El País, Terremoto, Art-Agenda, Concreta, and Mousse Magazine. Along with Ángel Calvo, he published the book Desde lo curatorial. Conversaciones, experiencias y afectos (2020) with the Consonni publishing house.