Yuko Hasegawa is a curator and art critic based out of Tokyo. She currently holds positions as Director of the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa, Artistic Director of the Inujima Art House Project and Honorary Professor of Graduate School of Global Arts, Tokyo University of the Arts. She was Artistic Director of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo until 2021. Yuko Hasegawa has curated Japanese contemporary art and media and technology extensively. During her post at the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo, she curated solo exhibitions of Dumb Type (2019-2022), Olafur Eliasson (2020), and rhizomatiks (2021), and the collaborative project Tokyo Art Meeting (2011-2016) with Ryuichi Sakamoto, Mansai Nomura, and Taku Sato. In Japanorama: A new vision on art since 1970 at the Centre Pompidou-Metz (2017), and Fukami: A plunge into Japanese aesthetics in Paris (2018), Hasegawa presented unique perspectives of Japanese art to global audiences. Hasegawa has also curated, either solo or in a joint capacity, international art biennials including the 7th International Istanbul Biennial (2001), the Shanghai Biennale (2002), the 29th São Paulo Biennial (2010), the Sharjah Biennial 11 (2013), and the 7th Moscow Biennale (2017), Thailand Biennale, Korat (2021) and also served as art advisor to the 12th Venice Architecture Biennale (2010). Hasegawa's curatorial language is interdisciplinary, encompassing not simply art but also architecture, design, science and anthropology, and combined with global curating experience, allows her to view art as part of a single, holistic ecology. She is also interested in interventions into conceptions of Eurocentric modernism from the perspectives of gender and eco-criticism. Recently she has been exploring notions of ecology and place-making: from Clouds ⇄Forests at the 7th International Moscow Biennale (2017), SYMBIOSIS : The Lived Island (2021-2022) as part of the Inujima "Art House Project" of which she is Artistic Director, to Art & New Ecology at The University Art Museum, Tokyo University of the Arts (2022). She has written, co-authored and contributed to numerous books, papers and catalogues. Her recent publications include New Ecology and Art: Anthropocene as dithering time (Ibun-sha, 2022), "A New Ecology and Art: on the Clouds⇄Forests exhibition" (Journal of Global Arts Studies and Curatorial Practices vol. 1, Tokyo University of the Arts, 2020); "Grotesque and cruel imagery in Japanese gender expression: Nobuyoshi Araki, Makoto Aida and Fuyuko Matsui" (The Persistence of Taste: Art, Museums and Everyday Life After Bourdieu, Routledge, 2018); "Japanorama: Un Archipel en Perpétuel Changement" (Japanorama, Centre Pompidou-Metz Editions, 2017); and "Performativity in the Work of Female Japanese Artists in the 1950s–1960s and the 1990s" (Modern Women: Women Artists at The Museum of Modern Art, MoMA, 2010). Hasegawa has held positions as advisory committee member of Shanghai's Rockbund Art Museum (2014-2018), international advisory board member of The Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore (CCA) (2014-2017), and member of the Asian Art Advisory Board at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York (2008 – 2012). Currently she serves as an advisory committee member of Istanbul Biennale (2017-present), and international jury member of the Nasher Prize, Nasher Sculpture Center (2015-present), the Nomura Art Award (2019-present) and Florence Biennale (2019-present). She has been honored with the Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, France (2015), the Ordem de Rio Branco, Brazil (2017), and Japan Commissioner for Cultural Affairs Award, the Agency for Cultural Affairs, Japan (2020). In parallel with her curating roles, as a professor in Curatorial Studies at the Tokyo University of the Arts Graduate School of Global Arts since 2015, Yuko Hasegawa has taught students of multiple nationalities, while continuing to construct curatorial theories and contribute to the development of contemporary art discourse from non-western-centric points of view. Hasegawa holds an MFA in Art History from the Tokyo University of the Arts.
SELECTED JURIES
Juror Nomura Art Award, 2019-Present
Juror Florence Biennale, 2019-Present
Juror The Premio MAXXI BULGARI 2017
Juror Asian Art Biennale Bangladesh 2016
Juror Furla Art Award, Fondazione Furla 2015, Venice
Juror Nasher Prize Nasher Sculpture Center,2015-Present
Juror Hugo Boss Asia Art Award 2013-201７, Shanghai
Juror IAPA Award and Public Art Forum 2013, Shanghai
Juror The Han Nefkens Foundation-BACC Award for Contemporary Art 2013, Bangkok
Juror Future Generation Art Award, Pinchuk Art Centre, Kief, 2010, 2013
Juror Hermes Award 2003, Korea
Juror Hugo Boss Prize, Guggenheim Museum, 2002
Juror "Spectrum" International Prize for Photography of the Foundation of Lower Saxony
2001, Austria
Juror the Querini Stampalia FURLA Prize, Venice, 2001, 2007
Juror The 48 Esposizione La Biennale di Venezia, 1999
Art Advisory Fondazuione Sanretto, Rerebandengo Turin Italy, 1999
Art Advisory Panel Conclave for the exhibition Zeitwenden, Kunstmuseum Bonn, Rheinsches Landesmuseum, Stiftung fur Kunst und Kultur Bonn, 1997
Art Advisory Panel Art Scholarship Lenbachhouse Museum, Munich 1997
COMMUNITY SERVICE
Advisory Committee Member of Istanbul Biennale ,2017-Present
International Advisory Board Member of The Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore (CCA), 2014-2017
Advisory Committee Member of Rockbund Art Museum, 2014-2018
Artistic Director Inujima Art House Project, 2010-present
Guggenheim Asian Art Advisory Board Member, 2008-2012
Board member of the West Kowloon Cultural District Authority, Hong Kong, 2008 – 2010
Cultural Advisory Board of BIACS (International Biennale of Contemporary Art in Sevilla) , 2002-2004
WEXNER Center of International Arts Advisory Council, 2008-2012
Board Member of CIMAM, 2004-2008
Member of International Association of Art Critics
Member of IKT (International Association of Curators of Contemporary Art)
PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE
2021 – present Director, 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa
2010 - present Artistic Director, Inujima House Art Project
2016 -2021 Artistic Director, Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo
2006 - 2016 Chief Curator, Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo
2005 - 2006 Artistic Director, 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa
1999 - 2005 Chief Curator, 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa
1993 - 1999 Curator, Setagaya Art Museum, Tokyo
1992 - 1993 Visiting curator at Whitney Museum, NY (supported by a grant from A.C.C)
1989 - 1993 Curator, Contemporary Art Gallery, Art Tower Mito, Mito Arts Foundation, Japan
TEACHING
2016 - 2023 Professor, Tokyo University of the Arts, Graduate School of Global Arts, Department
of the Arts Studies and Curatorial Practices,
2005 - 2016 Professor, curatorial and art theory, Tama Art University, Tokyo
HONOURS
Received Japan Commissioner for Cultural Affairs Award (2020)
Received Ordem de Rio Branco (2017)
Received Chevalier De L'Ordere Des Arts Et Des Lettres (2016)
