She is Associate Professor and Director of the Visual Arts Program in the School of Architecture and Planning at MIT. Educated as an artist at the Hochschule für Bildende Künste Hamburg, she has been working as a curator for exhibition and presentations on contemporary art, media and architecture with a focus on sociopolitical discoursed and transdiciplinary formats since 25 years. 

Her shows include First Story-Women Building / New Narratives for the 21st Century commissioned for the European Cultural Capital Porto 2001 and Architectures of Discourse for the Fundación Antoni Tàpies in Barcelona. Between 1999-2002 she was co-curator of Documenta11 in the team of Okwui Enwezor, and has been the artistic director of the 3rd Berlín biennial for contemporary art in 2004. Most recently she curated one of five scenarios for InSite 2005 San Diego (USA) /Tijuana (MEX). Bauer has been the founding director of the Office for Contemporary Art Norway (OCA) from 2002 to 2005. Furthermore she was editor of several art periodicals such as META (Stuttgart), case (Barcelona, Porto) and Verkstedt (Oslo).