Karima Boudou (b. 1987) is an art historian and a curator. Trained in art history (Montpellier, Rennes) and philosophy (Nanterre), she participated in the Curatorial Training Programme at de Appel, Amsterdam, in 2012–13.
In the past eight years, she has organized research projects, exhibitions, conferences, and publications in Europe and Morocco. Her work intersects theoretically and practically with postcolonial theory and the reactualization of archives and decentered histories of modern and contemporary art, considering strategically the politics of vision and visibility in art history. In 2017 she was a Research Fellow at MAC VAL Musée d’art contemporain du Val-de-Marne, where she conducted research in the archive of Raoul-Jean Moulin. In 2019, she reactivated from Morocco new research lines on the life and oeuvre of African American Surrealist Ted Joans. This FORUM drew points and lines between private American and Dutch archives by reactualizing the legacies of artists and writers of African descent in the international Surrealist movement. Her most recent work focuses on the life and archive of politician and pan-Africanist Mehdi Ben Barka. She proceeds by resonance and ricochet to question via multiple ramifications history and identity - while crossing political praxis and theoretical reflection. The first public presentation of this research took place in October 2020 at Formerly Known as Witte de With in Rotterdam.
Boudou has lectured about the writers Jean Genet and Mohamed Leftah and the artists Glenn Ligon, Danh Vo, Dave McKenzie, and David Hammons. She has written for exhibition catalogues (Mu.ZEE, Ostend, Belgium; Le Cube, Rabat, Morocco) and magazines (Mousse, Ibraaz, rekto:verso, Metropolis M).
