John Tain

Biography

John Tain is Head of Research at Asia Art Archive, where he leads a team of researchers based in different parts of Asia. He also serves as an advisor to Asia Forum (2021–present). Previously, he was a curator of modern and contemporary collections at the Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles (2007–2017).

His curatorial projects include Translations, Expansions, Asia Art Archive’s contribution to documenta fifteen (2022); Crafting Communities, Asia Art Archive, Hong Kong (2020), which considered the history of Womanifesto, a feminist biennial programme active in Thailand from 1997 to 2008; Out of Turn (co-curated with Meenakshi Thirukode), Serendipity Arts Festival, Goa, India (2018); and Yasuhiro Ishimoto: Someday, Chicago, DePaul Art Museum, Chicago (2018). Other research projects include Independent Art Spaces of Taiwan (2022–present); Art Schools of Asia (2021–2022) seminar and accompanying symposium; and MAHASSA (Modern Art Histories in and across Africa, and South and Southeast Asia), co-organised with the Dhaka Art Summit and Cornell University’s Institute for Comparative Modernities (Hong Kong and Dhaka, 2019–2020).

He co-organised the symposium It Begins with a Story at the Focal Point art book fair (2018).

Tain has lectured and published widely. He has served as adjunct faculty for the MA Program in Curatorial Practices in the Public Sphere at the USC Roski School of Art and Design, Los Angeles (2011–2017). Notable writings can be found in Art and Its Worlds (Afterall, 2022); Uncooperative Contemporaries: Art Exhibitions in Shanghai (Afterall, 2020); The Lives of Others, Artforum (2016); Taxonomies of Desire, Hwayeon Nam: Time Mechanics (Arko Art Center, 2015); E.A.T. - Experiments in Art and Technology (Museum der Moderne, Salzburg, 2015); and Come as You Are: Art of the 1990s (University of California Press, 2014). He is a series editor for Exhibition Histories, co-published by Afterall with AAA, CCS Bard and HDK Valand at the University of Gothenburg.

Tain earned a BA from Harvard College, Cambridge, and did his graduate students in History of Art at the University of California, Berkeley.

Born in Taipei, he currently lives and works in Hong Kong.

SAF participation:
March Meeting 2021 and 2023
Focal Point 2018