ABOUT

Dr. Valentina Locatelli (b. 1979) is an Italian and Swiss independent curator and writer based in Berne, Switzerland. She is also the co-founder and president of art+château, a Berne-based not-for-profit organisation that supports artistic and curatorial experimentation in dialogue with architecture, heritage, and community.

With a strong background in both historical and contemporary art, Dr. Locatelli works at the intersection of curatorial research, interdisciplinary collaboration, and public engagement. Her projects often bring contemporary voices into dialogue with historical contexts and activate spaces through cross-disciplinary partnerships.

Dr. Locatelli has worked both independently—developing international exhibitions and artistic projects—and within museums in Switzerland, including three years at the Fondation Beyeler, six years at the Kunstmuseum Bern, and one year at the Museo d’Arte della Svizzera Italiana (MASI) in Lugano. Selected exhibitions she curated include a presentation of Swiss art masterpieces from the collection of the Stiftung für Kunst, Kultur und Geschichte (Winterthur), thematic surveys of works by Mexican women artists from the Daros Latinamerica Collection (Kunstmuseum Bern, 2014 and 2016), and a monographic exhibition of Los Angeles-based artist Eamon Ore-Giron (Espace Muraille, Geneva, 2021). In 2019, she curated the ambitious program dedicated to modern and contemporary Latin American art at the Grand Palais for Art Paris Art Fair.

Throughout her career, Dr. Locatelli has collaborated with a wide range of artists, both emerging and internationally established, including American textile artist Sheila Hicks, Swiss visual artist Maya Rochat, and Chinese painter Yuan Yuan. She has contributed to several scientific catalogues for the Fondation Beyeler (including Basquiat, Segantini, Brancusi & Serra, and Surrealismus in Paris, all published by Hatje Cantz), and has edited, authored, and published books such as Kunstmuseum Bern: Masterpieces (Hirmer Verlag, 2016), Cybèle Varela: Tropicalismo Remixed (Silvana Editoriale, 2018), and A Journey Through a Private Art Collection: From Balkenhol to Villeglé (Verlag für moderne Kunst, 2024).

Dr. Locatelli has presented at numerous international conferences and regularly contributes texts to exhibition catalogues and academic publications. She began her professional career at international auction houses, including Christie’s Department of 19th Century European Art in London and Dorotheum in Vienna.

She holds a PhD in art history from the University of Bergamo, with a dissertation on Giovanni Morelli (1816-1891) and art connoisseurship, developed through extended research at the Zentralinstitut für Kunstgeschichte (ZI) in Munich and the Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister in Dresden. She also holds a Master’s degree in foreign languages and literatures, and in 2012 completed the Master of Advanced Studies in Museology at the University of Geneva. Her academic and curatorial work has been supported by institutions such as the Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst (DAAD), Pro Helvetia, and the Samuel H. Kress Foundation.

A native Italian speaker, Dr. Locatelli is fluent in English, French, and German, and conversant in Spanish.