Born in Spain, Chus Martínez has a background in philosophy and art history. She is currently the Head of the Institute of Art Gender Nature of the FHNW Academy of Arts and Design in Basel, Switzerland, and associate curator of TBA21 | Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary.

She is board member of CIMAM (International Committee for Museums) and also serves on the advisory boards of numerous international art institutions, including SAHA Association in Istanbul; De Appel, Amsterdam and the Deutsches Historisches Museum, Berlin. She has been the Chief Curator at El Museo Del Barrio, New York and dOCUMENTA (13) Head of Department. Previously she was Chief Curator at MACBA, Barcelona, Director of the Frankfurter Kunstverein. Martínez has organized numerous exhibitions and publications with contemporary artists. She lectures and writes regularly including numerous catalogue texts and critical essays and is a regular contributor to international journals.

Recent exhibitions: Danish Pavilion at the 61st Venice Biennale (2026) with artist Maja Malou Lyse; A Velvet Ant, a Flower and a Bird at the Potter Museum of Art, Melbourne (2026); Pedagogies of War, featuring artists Roman Khimei and Yarema Malashchuk, at the Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza and TBA21; The Oracle, the 36th Ljubljana Biennale of Graphic Arts (2025); Clear, Lucid, and Awake at the Art Sonje Center, Seoul (2025); Stephanie Comilang: Search for Life at the Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza (2024); Doblad mis Amores, Collegium February 2023; Living in Joy, Art Sonje March 2023; Mathilde Rossier, Fondation Pernod Ricard, May 2023.

Recent publications are The Complex Answer: On Art as a Nonbinary Intelligence, Sternberg Press (2023); Like This. Natural Intelligence As Seen by Art. Hatje Cantz Verlag (2022); Coding Care (edited together with Sabine Himmelsbach), Hatje Cantz Verlag, 2022; Corona Tales. Let Life Happen to You, Lenz, (2021) and The Wild Book of Inventions, Sternberg Press (2020).