Asia Society Museum Names Dr. Beth Citron Curator of Modern and Contemporary Asian and Asian Diaspora Art

NEW YORK; March 21, 2024 — Asia Society Museum is pleased to announce the appointment of New York-based curator and art historian Dr. Beth Citron as Curator of Modern and Contemporary Asian and Asian Diaspora Art. Citron, a specialist in modern and contemporary South Asian art, will advance the museum’s initiatives in modern and contemporary visual art by Asian and Asian diaspora artists. She will work closely with Yasufumi Nakamori, Asia Society Museum Director and Vice President of Arts and Culture, to plan and implement Asia Society Museum’s modern and contemporary art exhibitions, as well as build the Museum’s contemporary art collection, initiated in 2003.

Announcing Citron’s appointment, Nakamori said: “We are thrilled to welcome Dr. Beth Citron to Asia Society. In this role, she will help further develop Asia Society’s longstanding scholarship on and engagement with Asian and Asian diaspora artists. Asia Society Museum has been a leader in the field of modern and contemporary Asian art going back to the early 1990s. Citron’s curatorial and scholarly expertise and leadership with a focus on modern and contemporary South Asia will be invaluable to advancing this work.”

A 2019 recipient of an Asian Cultural Council Fellowship for research on a curatorial history of modernist art from India, Citron was the founding Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Rubin Museum of Art in New York until October 2019. At the Rubin, she organized a trilogy of exhibitions on Modernist Art from India (2011-13), Francesco Clemente: Inspired by India (2014), Genesis Breyer P-Orridge: Try to Altar Everything (2016), and A Lost Future: Shezad Dawood, The Otolith Group, Matti Braun, among other projects centered on modern and contemporary art and photography. She has worked extensively in South Asia, including on exhibitions and programming with the Dhaka Art Summit and with Nature Morte (New Delhi) on global museum relations. Recently, she authored an online course on modern and contemporary Indian art for MAP Academy (Bangalore). She has lectured and published widely, contributing essays to scholarly publications, including Art Journal, and to various institutional and gallery exhibition catalogues. She has also authored reviews and think pieces in Artforum and ArtAsiaPacific, among other publications, and is a contributing arts editor of STIRWorld.

Citron holds a Ph.D. in art history from the University of Pennsylvania and has taught in the Art History Department at New York University, from which she also earned a B.A. in Fine Arts. She is a member of the Board of Trustees of the Association of Art Museum Curators Foundation.

Asia Society Museum presents a wide range of pre-modern, modern, and contemporary exhibitions of Asian art and Asian diaspora art, taking new critical approaches to familiar masterpieces and introducing under-recognized arts and artists. The Asia Society Museum Collection comprises a pre-modern art collection, including the initial bequests of Mr. and Mrs. John D. Rockefeller 3rd, and a modern and contemporary art collection launched in 2007. Through exhibitions and public programs, Asia Society provides a forum for the issues and viewpoints reflected in Asian and Asian diaspora art, culture, and society throughout history up to the present day.

Asia Society Museum is located at 725 Park Avenue (at 70th Street), New York City. For hours and admission information, visit AsiaSociety.org/NY. Connect with us on Instagram @AsiaSociety, and on Facebook and X @AsiaSocietyNY.