Biography

Yuko Hasegawa is the Artistic Director of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo (2016–present), and Professor in Curatorial Studies at the Graduate School of Global Arts, Tokyo University of the Arts (2016–present).

She has curated numerous exhibitions, including Inter-Resonance: Inter-Organics, Japanese Performance and Sound Art, Sharjah Art Foundation (2019–2020); Dumb Type | Actions + Reflections, Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo (2019–2020); Desire: A Revision from the 20th Century to the Digital Age, Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin (2019–2020); Sharjapan: The Poetics of Space, Sharjah Art Foundation (2019); Intimate distance. Masterpieces of the Ishikawa Collection, Montpellier Contemporain, Montpellier, France (2019); Fukami: A Plunge into the Japanese Aesthetic, Hôtel Salomon de Rothschild, Paris (2018);7th International Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art (2017)and Sharjah Biennial 11 (2013).

Her publications include the essay ‘Grotesque and cruel imagery in Japanese gender expression–Nobuyoshi Araki, Makoto Aida and Fuyuko Matsui’ in The Persistence of Taste: Art, Museums and Everyday Life After Bourdieu (Routledge, 2018); ‘Japanorama: Un Archipel en Perpétuel Changement’ in Japanorama (Centre Pompidou-Metz Editions, 2017); and ‘Performativity in the Work of Female Japanese Artists in the 1950s–1960s and the 1990s’ in Modern Women: Women Artists at The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA, 2010).

Hasegawa is a member of the Advisory Committee of the Istanbul Biennial (2017–present) and has previously served on the Advisory Committee of the Rockbund Art Museum, Shanghai (2014–2018), and the Asian Art Council at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York (2008–2012).

Hasegawa has been honoured with the Ordem de Rio Branco, Brazil (2017), and the Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, France (2015).

She completed a BA in Law from Kyoto University (1979) and an MFA in Art History from Tokyo University of Fine Arts and Music (1989).

Hasegawa currently lives and works in Tokyo.

SAF participation:
March Meeting 2021
Inter-Resonance: Inter-Organics, Japanese Performance and Sound Art (2020)
Sharjapan: The Poetics of Space (2019)
Sharjah Biennial 11
March Meeting 2013