X Zhu-Nowell - ASIA NOW 2019 Guest Curator

Building upon the success of its previous guest curator programs, ASIA NOW has invited X Zhu-Nowell, Assistant Curator at the Guggenheim New York, to devise this year’s Curatorial Platform. Taking its title from the popular internet abbreviation IRL {In Real Life}, her programme celebrated an emerging generation of artists who are digital natives and whose work critically engages with new media, issues of technology, and the challenges of contemporary art practice within our new sensorial environments.

Guest curator program: IRL {In Real Life} by X Zhu-Nowell (Assistant Curator at the Guggenheim Museum in New York)

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.

>> Meet X Zhu - Nowell Wednesday 16 October, 3.15pm @ASIA NOW 2019 - Chat Room