Jay Xu
Committee Chair
Director of SF Asian Art Museum
Director and CEO of Asian Art Museum of San Francisco–Chong-Moon Lee Center for Asian Art and Culture
Dr. Jay Xu has been Director and CEO of the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco–Chong-Moon Lee Center for Asian Art and Culture since 2008, and he is the first Chinese American director at a major American art museum. Dr. Xu is a passionate champion of Asian art and culture, committed to sharing his extensive knowledge of Asian art with a wide audience, and to promoting art and culture as an essential platform for cross-cultural understanding, diplomacy, and political and business developments.
Dr. Xu earned his MA and PhD in early Chinese art and archaeology at Princeton University. He enjoys a rich variety of international museum experience, having previously served in administrative and curatorial positions at the Shanghai Museum; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Seattle Art Museum; and Art Institute of Chicago.
Dr. Xu participated and contributed to the expansion projects at the Seattle Art Museum, and the Art Institute of Chicago. He has organized a wide range of exhibitions and made significant art acquisitions as a curator. A dedicated, award-winning scholar of Chinese art, Xu is well-published, particularly on ancient Chinese bronzes and archaeology. He has also lectured extensively on Asian art, including contemporary art, and on museum practice.
Dr. Xu is a member of the Association of Art Museum Directors; and a member of the Committee of 100, a national nonpartisan organization composed of American citizens of Chinese descent who have achieved positions of leadership in the United States in a broad range of professions. In 2015, Dr. Xu became the first Asian American museum director elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Since its founding in 1780 by John Adams, the Academy is one of the nation’s most prestigious honorary societies and enjoys the longest history. It has elected leading “thinkers and doers” from each generation, including founding fathers of the United States, Nobel laureates, and winners of various other distinguished prizes.
Abby Chen
Artistic Director Chinese Cultural Center
Abby Chen is currently the Curator and Artistic Director at the Chinese Culture Foundation of San Francisco. Under her leadership, the organization was transformed into an open and process-driven platform for contemporary art practice. She initiated Xian Rui/Fresharp Artist Excellence Series since 2008, the first of its kind in the country supporting mid-career artists of Chinese descent in US. In 2010, she organized 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 the social practice based experiment with artists such as 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 or loaned her exhibition to Yerba Buena Center For the Arts and Museum of Chinese in America in New York.
Abby Chen was the National Endowment for the Humanities 2012 Summer Scholar. She graduates with Master of Arts in Visual and Critical Studies from California College of the Arts. She is a contributor to Yishu: Journal of Contemporary Chinese Art.
Laura Boles Faw
Faculty Member at San Francisco Art Institute
Laura Boles Faw is an artist and educator. Her work consists of investigations through sculptural objects, installations, curatorial projects, and collaborative ventures. She examines the ways we prop ourselves up in the world and borrows from art historical references in order to create new meanings and transformative fictions. Boles Faw has recently exhibited in the Bay Area at Scrawl Center for Drawing, Meridian Gallery, The Mystic, Alter Space Gallery, Kala Art Institute, Royal NoneSuch Gallery and Ever Gold Gallery, and additionally at the Santa Cruz Museum of Art and History, James Madison University in Virginia and Vast Space Projects in Las Vegas.
Boles Faw received her BA in Art History from Sewanee and her MFA in Sculpture from the San Francisco Art Institute. Since 2012, she has taught in the Sculpture Department at SFAI.