Ute Meta Bauer is an Associate Professor and the Director of the Visual Arts Program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, MA. From 1996 to 2006, she was a Professor of Theory and Practice of Contemporary Art at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna. For over two decades, she has curated exhibitions with a focus on transdisciplinary formats linked to feminist and socio-political contexts.

Bauer was the Artistic Director of the 3rd berlin biennial for contemporary art and a co-curator of Documenta 11. Her curatorial credits also include section ?/NowHere at the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebaek, Denmark, 1996; Architectures of Discourse, Fundació Antoni Tàpies, Barcelona, 2001; First Story—Women Building/New Narratives for the 21st Century, European Cultural Capital Porto, Porto, Portugal, 2001; Mobile_Transborder Archive commissioned by curator Osvaldo Sánchez for inSite 05, San Diego, CA / Tijuana, Mexico, 2005; and What's left? What remains?—SITAC VI, Simposio Internacional de Teoria Sobre Arte Contemporáneo, Centro Cultural Universario Tlatelolco, Mexico City, 2008. She is currently at work on Theatrical Fields. Theatricality as feminist practice in time based art, a research project that will be shown in 2010 at LABoral Center for the Arts and Industrial Creation, Gijon, Spain, and WKV, Stuttgart, Germany. Bauer has also served as the director of various institutions such as Künstlerhaus Stuttgart and the Office for Contemporary Art Norway. She is currently a member of the Governing Board of n.b.k. Berlin; the Scientific Advisory Board of the International Bauhaus Foundation Dessau, Germany; and LABoral, Gijon, Spain.