Asian Art Museum fills new position
The Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, which has been working to expand its coverage and collecting of contemporary art, has announced Abby Chen as its first head of its department for current art. Chen will begin next year, leaving her role as artistic director of the Chinese Culture Center of San Francisco.
The appointment comes as the Asian Art Museum continues work on a $90 million gallery addition and renovation, due to open in 2020. The museum plans what it calls “a new emphasis on contemporary art,” alongside enhanced presentation of the entire collection of roughly 18,000 works representing 6,000 years of art in Asia.
“We are thrilled to welcome Abby to the team because she is, above all, a bridge-builder. She builds bridges between audiences and art, between artists and institutions, and between institutions and important ideas and issues that we all confront today,” said Jay Xu, director and CEO of the Asian Art Museum, in a statement.
Chen, whose title will be senior associate curator and head of contemporary art, will lead a unit equal in rank to departments of Japanese and Chinese art starting Jan. 7.
“Investing in new platforms, new spaces and new artists is a bold statement from a storied institution
about how critical contemporary art is when engaging with shifting demographics and evolving imaginations,” she said in a statement. Chen called such issues “relevant not only to a rapidly changing Asia and the wider world, but above all, here in the Bay Area.”
Born in China, the 46-yearold Chen came to the United States in 1997. She holds a master’s degree in visual and critical studies from the California College of Arts.
Chen’s move is just one of several substantial changes being made in the art museum and nonprofit landscape of the Bay Area, with high-level vacancies at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Museum of the African Diaspora, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, the Mexican Museum and Southern Exposure, among others.