Julie Niemi (b.1988, Tulsa, Oklahoma) is a curator, writer, and editor currently based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. She is an Assistant Curator at the John Michael Kohler Arts Center (JMKAC) in Sheboygan, Wisconsin, where her primary focus is assisting with presenting the Arts Center’s collection of folk art, self-taught art, and artist-built environments. Taking this rich collection and its history as a starting point, she incorporates these works into curatorial projects that explore contemporary themes and issues alongside emerging artists.

Julie received an M.A. from the Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College, where she was commissioning editor of aCCeSsions. Her thesis at CCS Bard was on Tolstoy College, an anarchist educational community active at the University at Buffalo in the 1970s and ‘80s. From 2013–2015, she was co-founder and editor of VIA Publication. Her writing has appeared in Frieze, Temporary Art Review, CAS, and Art21 Magazine. 

Her recent exhibitions and projects include:
There’s no such thing as bad weather, only bad clothes.
The Barn
K8 Hardy: Undergirding Heroine Ensemble
Studies from the Bottom Up
All Things Scene

Prior to joining JMKAC, she held positions as Curatorial Fellow at the Henie Onstad Kunstsenter, Oslo, Norway and as Communications Associate at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. She has provided editorial and marketing support for: RAM Publications, Los Angeles; Project Projects, New York; Inventory Press, New York; and East of Borneo, Los Angeles. She has given talks at the Centre Pompidou, University of California, Los Angeles, Independent Curators International, and Threewalls. She is part of the working group Collective Question and a current recipient of the 2018 Foundation for Arts Based Initiative grant.