From the Street to the Museum and Back to the Street…

Attempting to liberate themselves from the structure of the “art establishment”, contemporary artists resorts to the urban (and rural) space for a wider space to experiment, and hence, to reach out to the larger public, and especially, encounter with different cultures. The street becomes a new studio and stage while new public spheres are generated with the artists’ interventions. These actions have “forced” the “establishments” to open their programs to an unknown world, and also turned the “museum” into an unknown, but definitely innovative, hence more relevant, world…involving in such actions has been redlined to guide my curatorial practice for the last decades.

Hou Hanru is an art critic, writer and curator based in Paris and Rome. He is currentlu Rudolf Wittkover Fellow at the Bibliotheca Hertziana. He has been director of Exhibitions and Public Program, Chair of Exhibition and Museum Studies, San Francisco Art Institute (2006–2012), Artistic Director of MAXXI (National Museum for 21^st Century Art and National Museum of Architecture), Rome (2013–2022).
He has curated and co-curated over 150 exhibitions for last three decades across the world including: China/Avant-Garde, Beijing, 1989; Parisien(ne)s, Camden Art Centre, London, 1997; Cities On The Move, 1997–2000, Biennales and Triennials in Johannesburg, Venice, Shanghai, Busan, Gwangju, Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Tirana, Istanbul, Lyon, Auckland, exhibition programs in San Francisco Art Institute (2006–2012) and MAXXI, Rome (2013–2022).
He is an advisor for numerous cultural institutions including Times Art Museum, Guangzhou, Rockbund Art Museum, Shanghai, Power Station of Art, Shanghai, The Solomon Guggenheim Museum, New York, etc. He has lectured in numerous institutions and has been visiting professor at Rijksakademie van Beeldense Kunsten, Amsterdam (1995–2005), Central Academy of Fine Arts, Beijing (2018–), School of Visual Arts New York (2015–) while serving in numerous international art awards juries. He published several books while more than 500 essays have been published in various exhibition catalogues, books, magazines and online media. He is a chavelier de l’ordre des arts et des lettres, France.

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Scientific Organization: Lara Demori