Art in China Now - Melissa Chiu (Members-Only Lecture)

Join Melissa Chiu, Director of the Asia Society Museum, for an inside view of the latest trends in the Chinese art scene.

Melissa Chiu is Director of the Asia Society Museum in New York and Senior Vice President for Global Arts and Cultural Programs for the Society's 11 centers and affiliates in the United States and Asia. She is responsible for the exhibition program in New York and at the organization's new cultural centers in Hong Kong and Houston. She was appointed Museum Director in 2004, after joining Asia Society in 2001 as the first-ever curator of contemporary Asian and Asian American art in the United States. As a leading authority on Asian contemporary art, she has initiated a number of major initiatives at the Asia Society Museum, including the launch in 2007 of a contemporary art collection to complement the museum's renowned collection of traditional Asian art, gifted to the Society in 1978 by Mr. and Mrs. John D. Rockefeller 3rd. In her role as museum director she has also organized major international first-time loan shows with the governments of China, Vietnam, Pakistan and India.

Chiu is a frequent commentator in the news media, and a go-to expert and authority on Asian contemporary art and artists. She has been a cultural commentator on PBS/Thirteen's Sunday Arts television program, where she interviewed cultural leading figures including Chuck Close, Shirin Neshat and William Kentridge. She has lectured at Harvard University, Columbia University, Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi, and Yale University, among others. She was a Getty Research Fellow (2003-2004) and has served on grant and policy advisory committees for the Institute of Museum and Library Services, the New York State Council on the Arts, the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, and Pew. She currently serves on the board of the Association of Art Museum Directors, the lead professional organization for art museum directors in the United States, as well as the American Association of Museums and the Museums Association of New York.

Chiu is the author of a number of books, including Breakout: Chinese Art Outside China (2007), which focuses on the international Chinese artistic diaspora, and Chinese Contemporary Art: 7 Things You Should Know (2008). Recent titles include the first comprehensive introduction to Asian contemporary art, Asian Art Now (Random House and Thames & Hudson, 2010) and the first academic anthology, Contemporary Art in Asia: A Critical Reader (MIT Press, 2010), both with Benjamin Genocchio.

Prior to joining Asia Society, Chiu was Founding Director of the Asia-Australia Arts Centre in Sydney, Australia (1996–2001). She earned her Ph.D in Art History and M.A. in Arts Administration in Australia.

In conjunction with the exhibition Bound Unbound: Lin Tianmiao, on view September 7, 2012 through January 27, 2013 (for more details, click here).

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