Karin G. Oen
Contributor Item Type Metadata
First Name
Karin G.
Surname or Business Name
Oen
Years Affiliated
2019 -
Affiliation
NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore (NTU CCA)
Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore
Birthplace
United States
Occupation
Director, NTU CCA Singapore (2024 - Current)
Senior Lecturer and Head of Department, Art History, NTU (2021 - Current)
Deputy Director, Curatorial Programmes (2019 - 2021)
Biographical Text
Karin G. Oen is Director at the NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore, and Senior Lecturer and Head of Art History in the School of Humanities. A global modernist, she is most interested in transdisciplinary and transnational art practices that resist easy classification, and in examining modes of writing about, displaying, and collecting art in diverse cultural contexts. From early career research on avant-garde art practices in early Reform Era China to serving as a museum curator for historical, modern, and contemporary collections of Asian art, to recent investigations of paracuratorial and paracurricular practices, her work has been characterised by attention to historiographies and genealogies, institutional power structures, and a broader project of balancing the global, the local, and making space for non-canonical art histories. Significant exhibitions include solo projects with teamLab, Haroon Mirza, Koki Tanaka, Afruz Amighi, Jean Shin, Fyerool Darma and Ala Ebtekar. Her group and thematic exhibitions have explored contemporary Japanese ceramics, modern and contemporary Japanese fashion, courtly arts from around South, Southeast, and East Asia, and the complex relationship between the physical and metaphysical in the concept of divinity. She received her PhD in the History, Theory, and Criticism of Art and Architecture from MIT.
Public Resource Centre Affiliation
Files
Collection
Citation
“Karin G. Oen,” NTU CCA Singapore Digital Archive, accessed May 18, 2025, https://ntuccasingapore.omeka.net/items/show/2780.
Item Relations
| This Item | Is Part Of | Item: Presentation and Conversation: Eco-Hacktivism with Irene Agrivina, artist; inhabitants, artists; Dr Serina Abdul Rahman, Visiting Fellow, ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute, Singapore; and Janelle Thompson, Associate Professor, Asian School of the Environment, NTU; moderated by Dr Karin Oen, Deputy Director, Curatorial Programmes, NTU CCA Singapore |
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