[6] Previously, Kholeif was the Manilow Senior Curator and Director of Global Initiatives at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago.
[9] Kholeif was born in Cairo, Egypt and holds degrees from the University of Glasgow, the Royal College of Art, London, and the University of Reading, where they completed a PhD in curatorial and cross-disciplinary cultural studies.
They have curated major exhibitions nationally and internationally including the Cyprus Pavilion at the 56th Venice Biennale, Abraaj Group Art Prize at Art Dubai and Armory Focus: Middle East, North Africa and the Mediterranean at the Armory Show, New York.
[12] Kholeif is the author and/or editor of over two-dozen books and has written for The Guardian,[13] Frieze,[14] Wired[15] and HuffPost.
[1] In 2023, Kohleif was part of the selection committee that nominated Zasha Colah as artistic director of the Berlin Biennale in 2025.