Mechtild Widrich is a historian of art and architecture trained at the University of Vienna and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where she received a PhD in the architecture department in 2009. She researches and teaches on art in public space and the question of the public sphere, on performance art and its mediation. Another focus is aesthetic theory, in particular beauty and ugliness, and realisms in art. 

 Her newest book is Monumental Cares. Sites of History and Contemporary Art (Manchester University Press, 2023).

Widrich is Professor in the Department of Art History, Theory and Criticism at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.