Julia Birka-White is an established arts professional with over a decade of experience managing contemporary art galleries, curating exhibitions, partnering with artists, and advising collectors.

She has held positions at leading galleries, including Rhona Hoffman Gallery in Chicago, where she served as the Director for several years, and Gagosian. Birka-White holds a Master of Arts in Modern and Contemporary Art History from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and a Bachelor of Arts in English Literature with a Creative Writing emphasis from Lake Forest College.

She has curated numerous exhibitions at venues like Rhona Hoffman Gallery, The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and Extase, her acclaimed apartment-based gallery, which she founded and operated in Chicago from 2018 to 2022. At Extase, Birka-White championed local and emergent artists through exhibition-making while organizing supplemental programming such as performances, lectures, screenings, and events centered around food and music. Exhibitions at Extase received coverage from major publications such as Chicago Magazine, Chicago Reader, Newcity, The New Art Examiner, Chicago Artist Writers, Journal.fyi, Lori Waxman’s 60wrd/min, and F News Magazine.

She is a member of the Arts Club of Chicago and remains involved in arts-related committees and organizations. Recent engagements include serving on the 2024 Benefit Committee for the Society for Contemporary Art (SCA) at the Art Institute of Chicago, and the inaugural 2024 Re/Match Nomination Committee, where she successfully nominated one of the four artists selected to receive a grant. She has also participated as a speaker for Independent Curators International (ICI)’s Chicago Curatorial Seminar, was invited by the Chicago Artists Coalition’s BOLT Residency program to conduct studio visits with the 2023–24 residents, and has spoke about professional practices in the art department at Lake Forest College.

Her academic interests and specialized knowledge include contemporary Polish art, representations of nationalism in visual culture, monument photography and decommunisation practices in Poland, and the broader study of postsocialist and postcommunist artistic production.

She is currently based in the San Francisco Bay Area, where she is originally from.