Department: Tate Modern Curatorial
Hosts: Natalia Sidlina, Curator, International Art); Carla Flack, Sculpture & Installation Conservator; Anna Cooper, Paintings Conservator.
Exhibition view Blue Rider. A New Language, 2024–2026, Lenbachhaus Munich
© Photo: Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus und Kunstbau München, Simone Gänsheimer
Nicholas Maniu (Germany) is an art historian, curator and writer whose practice engages with the representation of gender, sexuality and national or cultural identity in visual culture from the nineteenth century to the present. Through research, writing and curatorial work, he investigates how artistic practices challenge normative conceptions of the body, desire and belonging, while negotiating questions of nationality, borders and cultural hybridity. His work is particularly interested in tracing genealogies of artistic solidarity across historical contexts and exploring how artists navigate multiple, overlapping identities.
As a Brooks Fellow at Tate and Delfina Foundation, Nicholas will explore the theme ‘Ecology of Migrating Identities’ by examining how artistic practices negotiate shifting forms of identity and belonging. Drawing on Gloria Anzaldúa’s concept of the borderlands, he considers how gender, cultural hybridity and national identity intersect within processes of migration and cultural exchange. The project also engages Rosi Braidotti’s notion of nomadic subjectivity as a framework for understanding identity as dynamic, non-unitary and resistant to fixed territorial and cultural definitions. In parallel, he is interested in the migration stories of artworks themselves, using provenance research to trace their journeys across different cultural and historical contexts.
Recent curatorial projects include Turner. Three Horizons at the Lenbachhaus, Munich 2023–24; The Blue Rider. A New Language at the Lenbachhaus, Munich 2024; Remembering Paul at Forum Queeres Archiv / Manifold Books, Amsterdam 2024; and 5 Friends. John Cage, Merce Cunningham, Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg, Cy Twombly at Museum Brandhorst, Munich 2025. His publications include Queer! Bilderwelten männlich-männlichen Begehrens und queerer Geschlechtlichkeit 2023 and Turner. Ein Lesebuch / A Reader (co-editor) 2023, alongside numerous essays on queer art histories, gender and identity in visual culture.
Nicholas was born in Germany and is currently based in Munich.