In December 2019, Abby Chen was appointed to the newly created position of Head of Contemporary Art at the Asian Art Museum. In this role, Chen manages the museum’s contemporary art team, oversees an expanding contemporary art program, and forges partnerships with local and international artists. Prior to this, Chen was the Curator and Artistic Director at the Chinese Culture Foundation of San Francisco where she transforms the organization into an open and process-driven platform for contemporary art practice. She initiated the Xian Rui/Fresharp Artist Excellence Series since 2008, the first of its kind supporting mid-career artists of Chinese descent in US. In 2010, she organized the Gender Identity Symposium, a multi-city forum in Guangzhou, Beijing, and Shanghai, followed by the 2011 exhibition WOMEN我們 (Shanghai, San Francisco, and Miami). Her most recent project is social-practice based experiments with artists including Lam Tung-pang, Summer Meiling Lee, and Xu Tan.
Her other curatorial ventures include Moment For Ink, challenging nationalism and sexism in traditional Chinese painting. The exhibition opened in various sites including Asian Art Museum, San Francisco State University, and traveled to Zhejiang Art Museum in China. She curated and loaned her exhibition to Yerba Buena Center For the Arts and Museum of Chinese in America in New York.
Abby was the National Endowment for the Humanities 2012 Summer Scholar. She holds a Master of Arts in Visual and Critical Studies.
GLI Peer Mentor (2018, 2019)