Gantuya Badamgarav is
a Mongolian art curator and the founder of Art Space 976+. She is the
first ever organizer and commissioner of Mongolia Pavilion at La
Biennale di Venezia.
Gantuya was born
in 1968, in Mandalgovi, Mongolia. When she graduated high school,
Gantuya was torn between math and art to select her major, as she had a
strong passion for both. She is a bronze medalist from the National
Mathematical Olympiad of Mongolia and participant of International
Mathematical Olympiad in Finland, 1985. As socialist Mongolia did not
encourage artistic endeavors, Gantuya decided to become an economist.
She studied Macro Economic Planning in Leningrad Institute of Economics
and Finance (present day Saint Petersburg State University of Economics
and Finance) in 1980s and received her master's degree from Williams
College, USA in Macroeconomic Policy in 2006. After the collapse of the
socialist system in Mongolia, Gantuya worked for the Asian Development
Bank, United States Agency for International Development and other
institutions as an economic analyst and consultant, and later she had
held strategic development positions in largest conglomerates in
Mongolia, such as Tavan Bogd Group.
In 2012, Gantuya
quitted her successful career and founded Art Space 976+ (formerly
known as 976 Art Gallery) with a desire to promote contemporary art of
Mongolia. Within few years, Gantuya and her team managed Art Space 976+
becoming an important cultural hub of Ulaanbaatar city, by hosting
experimental exhibitions, performances, and open discussions with
leading contemporary artists of Mongolia, all the while collaborating
with renowned international artists.
Upon opening Art
Space 976+, Gantuya quickly realized that contemporary art in Mongolia
needed "a significant amount of support". Thus, she established a
non-government organization Mongolian Contemporary Art Support
Association (MCASA). Through MCASA, Gantuya commissioned the first ever
participation of Mongolia at La Biennale di Venezia in 2015. Later she
continued the endeavor by organizing the 2017 and the 2019 Mongolia
Pavilions where she worked as a curator for the latter. Titled A
Temporarily, "project stem[ed] from the curator’s ambition to transform
ancient mediums of oral expression into contemporary form". It included
a site-specific installation by Jantsankhorol Erdenebayar along with a
sound installation made in collaboration with Carsten Nicolai and
Mongolian traditional throat singers. The exhibition garnered an
extensive media attention, marking it as one of the must visit
pavilions of that year.
Moreover,
Gantuya has worked as an independent curator for multiple projects such
as Echoes of the Void by Italian artist Maria Rebecca Ballestra, China
Dolls by Canadian artist Nathalie Daoust and Nomad Spirit by Diaz &
Riedweg and 5 Mongolian artists, including Munkhbolor Ganbold and
Davaajargal Tsaschikher.
She is one of
the contributing authors of the documenta 14 Daybook and speaker at 7th
World Summit on Arts and Culture in Malta, Culture Summit Abu Dhabi
2018 and TEDx Ulaanbaatar 2018.
