Chat Room

Wednesday 16 October | 3.15-4.15pm

Opening Discussion : “IRL”

  • X Zhu-Nowell, Assistant Curator at the Guggenheim Museum New York and guest curator of ASIA NOW 2019

  • Gary Zhexi Zhang, artist and writer


Image courtesy of X Zhu-Nowell

Image courtesy of X Zhu-Nowell

X Zhu-Nowell

>> X Zhu-Nowell, ASIA NOW 2019 Guest Curator

>> IRL {In Real Life}

X Zhu-Nowell is an Assistant Curator at the Guggenheim where they are involved with a wide range of exhibitions and programs.

Currently, they are leading the effort to build the Guggenheim’s first acquisition group dedicated to the works of Asian and Asian diaspora artists, which includes an annual performance and/or discursive program. As well, they are working on a full rotunda collection show tentatively titled Performance, Process and Politics in the 1970s (2021-2022).

Previously, they contributed to the research and implantation of the Art and China after 1989: Theater of the World in New York and its subsequent tour to Guggenheim Museum Bilbao and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

Prior to joining the Guggenheim Museum in 2014, they were part of the curatorial team for the 14th Istanbul Biennial SALTWATER: A Theory of Thought Forms and held curatorial positions at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, the Sullivan Galleries and the Hyde Park Art Center.

They hold a master’s degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Since 2018, X Zhu-Nowell has collaborated with Freddie Cruz Nowell as Passing Fancy, a curatorial and artistic research duo that focuses on auditory aesthetics, mediality, and discourses of queerness.


Image courtesy of Gary Zhexi Zhang

Image courtesy of Gary Zhexi Zhang

Gary Zhexi Zhang

Gary Zhexi Zhang is an artist and writer interested in socio-technical objects. Recent exhibitions include Cross-feed at Glasgow International (2018); vdrome.org (online); ALL CHANNELS OPEN at Wysing Arts Centre, Bourn. He is currently a UK associate artist at Delfina Foundation, London and was recently a visiting fellow at Sakiya: Art, Science and Agriculture in Ramallah. He is a co-founder of Foreign Objects LLC (NEW INC. 2019-20), a research consultancy that works with the internet. Recent publications include essays in Resisting Reduction (MIT Press, 2019) and Steve Bishop: Deliquescence (Sternberg Press, 2019).