Xu Jiang was born in Fujian in 1955. For many years now Xu Jiang has appeared before the public in a variety of different roles and personae. He is an important organiser of academic activities in the art world and has for a long time served as chair of the Academic Advisory Committee to the Shanghai Biennale. Xu organises and curates major exhibitions of contemporary art and was named by the respected UK journal Art Review as one of the hundred most influential authorities in the global art world. Xu is also an educator, director of the China Academy of Art, upholding the institution’s historical legacy and spiritual traditions and also its academic atmosphere that is both boldly progressive and quietly broad-minded. Xu maintains a spirit of creativity and innovation suited to the times and has made a clear commitment to an academic approach of ‘interactive diversity, in harmony but not conformity’.
Xu is able to take on board a whole variety of academic and other newly-emerging resources, continually improving the knowledge structure of art education, working hard to promote and implement concepts and reforms of every kind within that educational arena; he has been enormously influential both in China and overseas and his achievements have been outstanding. He is also a learned and profound author and lecturer, his many publications including Vigil at One Metre (Yi mi de shouwang) and Sight Seen Cities (Shijue na cheng) providing a meticulous examination of contemporary art and cultural indicators and a deep analysis of the key questions and major phenomena of contemporary art.
