Doctor of Art History and Heritage Curator since 2002, Nicolas Surlapierre served as the director of the Museums of the Centre in Besançon from October 2016 to September 2022, overseeing institutions such as the Museum of Fine Arts and Archaeology, the Museum of Time-Palais Granvelle, and from April 2021 to September 2022, he acted as the interim director of the Higher Institute of Fine Arts in Besançon (ISBA). He was appointed director of MacVal in October 2022.

He curated around sixty exhibitions, with more than half focusing on modern or contemporary art, including solo exhibitions such as François Morellet (2002), L’origine est proche – Vincent Barré sculptor (2019), and thematic exhibitions like Matisse et l’Arbre (2003), Le groupe Vouloir: Lille 1925 at the Departmental Museum Matisse in Le Cateau-Cambrésis (2004), Voisins Officiels at the Museum of Modern Art in Lille Métropole (2005), Hors Langage, LMB La maison de l’inventaire, Hypnos – Images et inconscients en Europe (1900-1958) (2009), or Km/Heure utopies automobiles et ferroviaires (2013). He also curated a significant exhibition featuring over 50 contemporary artists titled Retour sur l’abîme – l’art à l’épreuve des génocides (2015). On several occasions, he presented thematic exhibitions of the collections of Frac Franche-Comté such as L’audace monumentale (2010) and L’embarras du choix (2013). In Besançon, asserting his status as a curator-author, he designed pathways through the permanent collections of the Museums of the Centre, interspersed with contemporary artworks in nomadic displays, titled after popular songs or conceived as a never-ending credits sequence (Et le désert avance (2018), Rien à voir (2019), Didascalies ou l’esprit d’escalier (2022)). He coordinated the significant retrospective of Charles Belle, bringing together seven museums and major heritage sites in Franche-Comté. The Bisontine stage Tous les reliefs d’une nuit reinterpreted the artist's work through the lens of the Orpheus myth, René Daumal's posthumous work Le mont Analogue, and somewhat esoteric memories of Patti Smith. He recently curated the new display of MacVal's collections titled L’œil vérité ou le musée au second degré. Currently, he is curating a contemporary component as part of Normandie Impressionniste. The exhibition Le perroquet Harelle is a fictional exhibition conceived as seven short stories loosely inspired by Flaubert's Parrot. He is also preparing an exhibition at MacVal on the theme of "faits divers" (miscellaneous news) which will open in November 2024. Faits divers, une hypothèse en 26 lettres, 5 équations et aucune réponse has recently been labeled as a National Exhibition of Interest by the Ministry of Culture and will bring together no less than 80 contemporary artists.