Education:
B.A. in Economics and Chinese Literature/Language (Peking University, China)
M.A. in comparative literature (University of Texas at Austin)
Ph.D. in comparative literature and contemporary art history (University of Texas at Austin)
Biography:
Dr. Tan specializes in Chinese, East Asian, and Asian diasporic art of the 20th and 21st century. Her research interests include global avant-gardism, public and socially engaged art, eco art and activism, vernacular artmaking, and the history of collecting and exhibiting Asian art. Her monograph The Minjian Avant-garde: Art of the Crowd in Contemporary China (Cornell, 2023) studies how experimental artists mixed with, brought changes to, and let themselves be transformed by minjian, the volatile and diverse public of the post-Mao era, and critically assesses the rise of populism in both art and politics. Dr. Tan has published in peer-reviewed journals such as positions: asia critique, Art Journal, Diacritics, World Art, and Third Text. Her curatorial and editorial activities explore the connections between Asian and Asian American art through the concept of Global Asias. Her current book project Network Moderns studies the intersection between photography, painting, design, and theater in China and the Chinese diaspora from the 19th century to present, emphasizing the collaborative and vernacular aspects of modernisms. The research for this project has been supported by the Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation, the Humanities Institute, Center for Humanities and Information, and Center for Advanced Studies in the Visual Arts. She is also working on a collaborative project on Sinophone eco art. Her teaching ranges from graduate to freshman seminars in both Art History and Asian Studies. She serves on the editorial board of Verge: Studies of Global Asias and Journal of Contemporary Chinese Art.
Research Interests:
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