Daniela Mayer is an independent researcher, curator, and educator based in New York.

Mayer is an independent researcher, curator, and educator specializing in modern and contemporary art, with a focus on transnational art networks across the Americas and at the intersections of identity, race, and socio-political histories.

Mayer is the curator of Cosmic Shelter: Hélio Oiticica and Neville D’Almeida’s Private Cosmococas, which was on view at the Hunter College Art Galleries from October 12, 2023, to March 30, 2024. This exhibition featured the U.S. premiere of two unique installations by the renowned Brazilian artists and emerged from Mayer’s master’s thesis, “An Outlaw in Babylon: Hélio Oiticica’s Transgressive Strategies in the Margins of New York, 1970–1978.”

In July 2024, Mayer curated Para Todos Todo, Free in the Open Air at MAMA Projects, marking the first solo exhibition in New York City for Colombian-American multidisciplinary artist Christina Barrera. Mayer also previously organized a symposium in collaboration with The Artist’s Institute at Hunter College and the Raw Material Company in Dakar, Senegal, in 2021, focusing on the intersections of arts, activism, and underrepresented histories. Mayer contributed to the curatorial team for Robert Rauschenberg: Night Shades and Phantoms (2019) at the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, where they authored the catalogue essay “Looking Also Happens in Time: Memory Traces in Robert Rauschenberg's Night Shades and Phantoms.”

Mayer has worked as a lecturer at Hunter College and the School of Visual Arts, as well as a research fellow at the Renate, Hans and Maria Hofmann Trust. They have also held various research and administrative positions at Hunter College, Sotheby's, and Art21. They hold an M.A. in Art History and an Advanced Certificate in Curatorial Studies from Hunter College, as well as a B.A. in Art History and Journalism from New York University.