Tirdad Zolghadr (b. 1973, Iran) is an independent curator, critic and writer. He is a regular contributor to Frieze and Cabinet. He is the author of novels and essays including Traction (2016) and, with Nav Haq, Lapdogs of the Bourgeoisie – Class Hegemony in Contemporary Art (2010). In 2005, he was the co-curator of the Taipei and Sharjah Biennials and in 2009 was appointed the curator of the United Arab Emirates Pavilion at the Venice Biennial. From 2016 to 2020, he was an associate curator at the KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin. Since 2017 he has been the artistic director of the Sommerakademie Paul Klee in Bern. He lives and works in Berlin.