Atelier Jade Niklai is a research-based curatorial practice, realising unique creative projects with culturally curious individuals and organisations. It is founded by Jade Niklai, a trained art historian and international curator with over 25 years of institutional, collaborative and independent experience.

Jade Niklai is a curator of modern and contemporary art, architecture and design. She commissions and produces cultural projects with an interest in public discourse and urbanism, social politics and memory practices. Her programmes are underscored by compelling conversations and collaborations, ranging from the emerging to the established.

Jade has held curatorial positions at the Ludwig Museum of Contemporary Art (Aachen/Budapest), The Architecture Foundation (London) and Foster + Partners (London). She trained at The Museum of Modern Art (New York) and the Sydney Biennale. As an institutional curator, she has delivered over 50 major exhibitions, 30 new art commissions, 25 publications and 120 public events.

Since 2013 Jade works as an independent consultant, advising creative luxury brands, including LVMH’s Espace Louis Vuitton München – alongside urban developers, private and corporate clients – on public art, collection building and cultural communication strategies. The Paddington Square Public Art Programme, realised on behalf of Lacuna (London), presents in 2024 three permanent public artworks by Ugo Rondinone, Pae White and Catherine Yass, as well as temporary commissions by Kathrin Böhm, Long Distance Press and Harold Offeh in partnership with The Showroom.

From 2010 to 2022 Jade was founding director and chief curator of Blood Mountain Foundation: an independent research and curatorial platform based in Vienna and focusing on the cultural past, present and potential of Central Europe. The ethos of her multi-disciplinary and intersectional curatorial practice is informed by this experience. In 2023 she curated the Jewish Museum of Australia’s flagship exhibition, Chagall: Printmaking, Poetry and Public Art, which examines the 20th Century Master’s prolific output in book publishing and public art.

Jade holds a BA in Art History from The Courtauld Institute of Art, University of London and an MA in Curatorship from the University of Melbourne. She sits on the editorial board of readingdesign.org and is a member of industry peer bodies, ICOM and Design Institute of Australia. Born in Hungary and raised in Australia, Jade studied in the UK and trained in the US. She conducts daily work and life in English, Hungarian, French and German. Since 2020 Jade pursues her inter-disciplinary and international curatorial and consultancy practice from Melbourne, Australia.