IRENE SHUM, CURATOR / ART & ARCHITECTURE

"Art is the idea expressed in sensuous form." (G.W.F.Hegel)

Curator Irene Mei Zhi Shum (沈美芝)is a highly regarded arts leader and strategist, known for building the operational & programming capacity of arts organizations, organizing ambitious exhibition projects, and championing the artists and designers with whom she works.  She is skilled at creating and aligning programming with new initiatives and long-term objectives. Her curatorial practice explores the intersection of art and architecture, specializing in new commissions.

Shum is the founding Vice President of the Williamsburg Biannual, a new nonprofit artist space in Brooklyn, New York and the proprietor of New Territories Art, a curatorial consultancy whose name is a nod both to her ancestral home of Hong Kong and ambition to produce new, groundbreaking art projects. Past positions that she has held include Executive Director of Art in General (2020), Associate Curator of Contemporary Art at the Menil Collection (2018-2020), and inaugural Curator and Collections Manager of the Glass House (2007-2018), a site of the National Trust for Historic Preservation.  She also worked at The Museum of Modern Art (2003-05), National University of Singapore (2003), Whitney Museum of American Art (1996), and New Museum of Contemporary Art (1994-95), where she started her career in the arts in its Multicultural Internship Program, a one-year full-time paid position, funded in part by the National Endowment for the Arts. Shum is committed to education and community building, serving panels for the New York State Council on the Arts, New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, Artadia, Rice Design Alliance, Houston Arts Alliance, Galveston Artists Residency, Houston Arts Partners, and the Mayor’s Office of Cultural Affairs (Houston), and National Endowmnet for the Humanities. She currently serves on the Advisory Board of Project 14C, an artist residency program in Jersey City, New Jersey.

Shum has worked with emerging and mid career artists, such as Tauba Auerbach, E.V. Day, Trenton Doyle Hancock, Vincent Valdez, and Brian Alfred; as well as legendary masters, including Frank Stella, Julian Schnabel, and Bruce Nauman. Her projects have been published in The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Artforum, Galerie, Artnet, Cultured, Wallpaper, Metropolis, Architecture, Architectural Review, World Architecture, Interior Design, Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, Town & Country, W, Rolling Stone, Pitchfork, Resident Advisor, among others. She holds a Master’s in Architecture from Yale University; a certificate of architecture from the École des Beaux-Arts of the Ecoles d’Art Américaines de Fontainebleau, where she was awarded the Prix de Ville de Fontainebleau; and a Bachelor of Arts degree in Architecture and Art History from Barnard College, Columbia University.

Shum is passionate about the arts, and it is her deeply held conviction that art enriches our lives, providing moments of refuge, reflection, insight, wonder, and connection. Her work is guided by the simple principle that she learned early in her career from Marcia Tucker, the founding director of the New Museum:

“The artist comes first.”

-PROFESSIONL SERVICES-

ART ADMINISTRATION

(STRATEGIC PLANNING/CONTENT DEVELOPMENT/PROGRAMMING) 

PROJECT MANAGEMENT

(PLANNING/IMPLEMENTATION/ADMINISTRATION)

of 

EXHIBITIONS

PUBLICATIONS

LIVE EVENTS (MUSIC/DANCE/PUBLIC PROGRAMS)

INTERACTIVE DESIGN / FILM & VIDEO

COLLECTIONS MANAGEMENT & CARE

for 

PRIVATE & PUBLIC ART COLLECTIONS