mrjoeytang@gmail.com
Jo-ey Tang is a Hong Kong-born American curator, artist, writer, in non-hierarchical order. He began working alongside artists at The Notary Public in 2010 in his New York City apartment while a graduate student at New York University. He was arts editor of literary journal n+1 from 2009 to 2014, curator at Palais de Tokyo, Paris in 2014 and 2015, and director of exhibitions at Beeler Gallery at Columbus College of Art & Design, from 2017 to 2020, and digital community manager of Denniston Hill, New York in 2021. He currently lives in San Francisco, where he serves as director of KADIST San Francisco.
In thinking with and alongside artists, he calibrates and reimagines the encounters of divergent and resonant artistic practices in multiple, overlapping temporalities. He is currently preparing the sixth and seventh chapters of the project em>arms ache avid aeon: Nancy Brooks Brody / Joy Episalla / Zoe Leonard / Carrie Yamaoka: fierce pussy amplified, with an exhibition at Palais de Tokyo, Paris in 2023, and a book to be published in 2023.
Since 2015, he has been thinking with the original members of fierce pussy - Nancy Brooks Brody, Joy Episalla, Zoe Leonard, and Carrie Yamaoka - on the resonances between their individual practices in the context of their collective lifework. arms ache avid aeon: Nancy Brooks Brody / Joy Episalla / Zoe Leonard / Carrie Yamaoka: fierce pussy amplified, as Chapters One to Four, were sited at Beeler Gallery at Columbus College of Art & Design in 2018-2019. Chapter Five transited to Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania in 2019. Chapter Six takes the form of a book. It’s the hope that future New York chapters and passages might unfold and overlap over time, treating the streets of New York City, the site where the collective's work first found its public, as connectors between various art spaces. Rupert (Vilinius, Lithuania), and Denniston Hill (Woodridge, New York) were early supporters, providing residencies for Jo-ey Tang on this project.
Tang has curated and organized events and exhibitions at art centers and museums around the world, in addition to Palais de Tokyo, Paris, and Beeler Gallery at Columbus College of Art & Design, including Centre Pompidou, Paris; Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia; FUTURA Centre for Contemporary Art, Prague; Rupert, Vilnius; and Chi K11 Art Museum, Shanghai. He co-founded with artist Thomas Fougeirol, The plates of the present, a photogram project of over 1000 prints by over 134 artists, which was acquired by Centre Pompidou, Paris in 2019, and co-curated its exhibition at Pompidou in 2020 - 2021, and co-edited its book (Spector Books, Leipzig, 2020). An earlier iteration was exhibited at Baxter st / Camera Club of New York in 2015 (curated by Sonel Breslav).
Tang’s writing on artists and exhibitions has appeared in Artforum.com, The Brooklyn Rail, Flash Art, Kaleidoscope, LEAP, This Is Tomorrow, and ArtAsiaPacific, on artists Samara Golden, Jutta Koether, Rodrigo Hernandez, Pratchaya Phinthong, Carissa Rodriguez, Oscar Tuazon, and Elaine Cameron-Weir, and in interviews with Heide Hinrichs, Jean-Luc Moulène, Josephine Halvorson, and on Park McArthur, Sable Elyse Smith, Constantina Zavitsanos, Vier5 for institutions such as Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus; S.M.A.K, Ghent; MACRO Museum of Art, Rome. His writings on Daiga Grantina and Yu Ji are included in books published by Emalin, London, and Sadie Coles HQ, London, in 2022. For KADIST, he has interviewed, filmed and edited videos focusing on singular works in the contemporary art collection, on Barbara Bloom, Gabriel Kuri, Pratchaya Phinthong, Maaike Schoorel and R.H. Quaytman.
He is editor and co-editor of several books: DUST: The Plates of the Present (Spector Books, Leipzig and Centre Pompidou, Paris, 2020); shelf documents: art library as practice (TRACK Report, Antwerp, 2021); the upcoming book arms ache avid aeon: Nancy Brooks Brody / Joy Episalla / Zoe Leonard / Carrie Yamaoka: fierce pussy amplified with the artists (Dancing Foxes Press, New York, 2023); and curatorial feelings by Eloise Sweetman (Shimmer Press, Rotterdam, 2022). For Image Text Ithaca Press (Ithaca College, NY), he co-conceived with designer Paul Soulellis and the graduating class of 2020, TAKE THE SHIP APART, a publication as exhibition.
Tang has taught undergraduate photography courses at New York University; Paris College of Art; and graduate MFA thesis course at Image Text Ithaca, Ithaca College; and has conducted visiting lectures and panels and as critic at universities and schools of arts, at Yale University School of Art; School of the Art Institute of Chicago; Université de Lille III, France; New York University Berlin; the Ohio State University; and USC Roski School of the Art & Design, Los Angeles. Lectures and panels include Chisenhale, London; WIELS, Brussels; ICA Philadelphia; Videotage, Hong Kong; EXPO Chicago; ASIA NOW - Paris Asian Art Fair; something you should know. He has served on juries and committees such as Etant Donnés—the French-American Fund for Contemporary Art; Le Pavillon, Palais de Tokyo; École nationale supérieure d'arts de Paris-Cergy; Fotofocus, Cincinnati; Poppositions art fair, Brussels.
In Tang's art practice, he moves between photography, objects, video, sound, language, and questions what constitutes forms and the recognition of documentation. He has exhibited at the Centre Pompidou, Paris; Fondation d'Entreprise Ricard, Paris; Musée départemental d’art contemporain de Rochechouart, France; IAC - Institut d'art contemporain, Villeurbanne / Rhône-Alpes, France; Walker Art Center Library, Minneapolis; Occidental Temporary, Villejuif; The Suburban, Oak Park; Lyles & King, New York; Galerie Joseph Tang, Paris; Treignac Projet, France; Porcino/Chert, Berlin; Galerie Nathalie Obadia, Paris. His work is in the collection of Centre Pompidou, Paris; MoMA Library, New York; and private collections.
He received his MFA from New York University Steinhardt School, BFA from San Francisco Art Institute, and studied at Carleton College, Minnesota. He was a fellow at Edward F. Albee Foundation and Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (through New York University).
