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Vũ Dân Tân Museum
443 Ngọc Thụy, Long Biên, Hà Nội
Iola Lenzi is a Singapore historian and curator of Southeast Asian modern and contemporary art. Holding a PhD in modern Asian art history, and a degree in law LLB, through her writings and exhibitions she charts discourses of Southeast Asian art located in global modern art history. Supported by multi-lingual publications, her institutional exhibitions in Asia and Europe develop curatorial strategies for demonstrating Southeast Asian contemporary art’s transnational resonances beyond local specificities. She teaches Modern and Contemporary Southeast Asian Art History and Curatorial Methods at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, and in the Masters Asian Art Histories programme of Lasalle College-University of the Arts, Singapore. She served as Consultant Art Historian & Curatorial Narratives on the National Gallery Singapore StudioMilou Architectural project, 2010-2013, and has acted as commissioning editor of five multilingual research anthologies or journals, most recently guest co-editor of La Francophonie en Asie-Pacifique, produced by The National University of Vietnam (Hanoi), and Aix-Marseille University, France, on Asia-Pacific/France exchanges in Modern and Contemporary Art. In addition to her journal and anthology contributions, she has authored several monographs, including Museums of Southeast Asia (Didier Millet, 2004). Her most recent books are Power, Politics and the Street: Contemporary Art in Southeast Asian after 1970 (London: Lund Humphries, 2024); and Vu Dan Tan Citizen of the World: forging contemporary art in 1990s Hanoi (Hanoi: Fine Arts Publishing House, 2025).
School of Humanities, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
Lasalle/University of the Arts, Singapore (Formerly Lasalle/Goldsmiths) MA lecturing (2011–)
Service on various MA Art History Committees internationally
Vu Dan Tan Museum, Hanoi: conceptualising and launching this private museum 2025; curently serving as VDT Museum Director Exhibitions and Curatorial.
Samsung Corporation, Southeast Asia, conceptualising and curating a virtual museum of Southeast Asian contemporary art, “Masterpieces Digital Art Gallery” project, 2013-2016.
StudioMilou Architects, Singapore, on the National Gallery Singapore architectural project: consultant on collections and art historical narratives, 2010-2013.
Esplanade, Theatres on the Bay, Singapore: in-house visual arts writer, writing the quarterly critical reviews of Esplanade visual arts presentations, 2005-2017.
Vu Dan Tan Citizen of the World: forging contemporary art in 1990s Hanoi, Fine Arts Publishing House, Hanoi, 2025.
Power, Politics and the Street: Contemporary Art in Southeast Asian after 1970, Lund Humphries, UK, 2024.
National Museum of Singapore, Editions Didier Millet, 2008.
Museums of Southeast Asia, Editions Didier Millet, 2004.
Co-editor with Natalia Kraevskaia La Francophonie en Asie-Pacifique no. 7, National University of Vietnam/Presses Universitaires de Provence (PUP), Aix-Marseille University, France, on Asia-Pacific/France exchanges in Modern and Contemporary Visual Art, 1850-2022, 2023. (French).
The Roving Eye: contemporary art from Southeast Asia. Istanbul: Koc Foundation/ARTER Space for Art, 2014. (English and Turkish).
Concept Context Contestation: art and the collective in Southeast Asia. Bangkok: Bangkok Art and Culture Centre, 2014. (English and Thai).
Negotiating Home, History and Nation: two decades of contemporary art in Southeast Asia 1991-2011. Singapore: Singapore Art Museum, 2011.
Arahmaiani in Bangkok: Stitching the Wound. Bangkok: James W. Thompson Foundation, 2006. (English and Thai).
“Word-Play: Language and Power in Vietnamese Contemporary Art”. Proceedings of the Conference Vietnam up Close: Heritage, Continuity, Future, November 13-15 2025, Sofia University, Bulgaria. Forthcoming, 2026.
“Illicit Soliciting: ‘Markets of Resistance’ and the audience/public space alliance in Southeast Asian contemporary art”. In Markets of Resistance, ed. Angel Velasco Shaw, v.3, 40-81. Baguio, Philippines: Baguio Kunst Book Publishing, 2025.
“Tran Luong’s performance of Complicit Resistance: locating its innovations in Vietnamese and Southeast Asian contemporary Participative Practice History”. In Tran Luong Soaked in the Long Rain, ed. Biljana Ciric, 31-53. Milan: Mousse Publishing, 2024.
“Early contemporary art in Vietnam: Đổi Mới shift as spur of innovation in globalizing 1990s-Hanoi” (2022) The Russian Journal of Vietnamese Studies. - 2022. - Vol. 6. -No. 1. p. 73-85. doi: 10.54631/VS.2022.61-105389
“L’art contemporain vietnamien dans le contexte du Sud-Est asiatique: l’oeuvre pionnière des années 1990 crée sur les bases des Beaux-Arts de Hanoi”.
La Francophonie en Asie-Pacifique no. 7, Sept (2021), 113-141, National University of Vietnam & Presses Universitaires de Provence (PUP), Aix-Marseille University.
“The Roving Eye: Southeast Asian Art’s Plural Views on Self, Culture, and Nation” (2014). In Curating Art, edited by Janet Marstine and Oscar Ho. Routledge, 2021.
“Globalisation as a Motor of New Visual Art Languages in turn-of-the-century Southeast Asia.” In Intercivilizational Contacts in Southeast Asia: Historical Perspectives and Globalization, edited by Alexander K. Ogloblin, 76-96. Saint Petersburg: Saint Petersburg State University-Faculty of Asian and African Studies, 2017. (with Natalia Kraevskaia).
“Recasting Tradition: Heritage and the Everyday as Critical Devices of Contemporary Southeast Asian Art.” Silpakorn University Journal of Fine Arts 4, no.1 (2016): 127-159. (English and Thai)
“Public Play: Audience Involvement and the Decoding of Concept in Socially-Engaged Southeast Asian Contemporary Art.” Obieg Special Issue-Parallel Contemporaries: the Art from Southeast Asia (u-Jazdowski Centre for Contemporary Art, Warsaw, Poland) no.2 (2016): 1-10. (English and Polish). http://obieg.u-jazdowski.pl/en/numery/azja/public-play--audience-involvement-and-the-decoding-of-concept-in-socially-engaged-southeast-asian-co accessed 16.3.20.
“Looking Out: How Queer Translates in Southeast Asian Contemporary Art”. Online in Intersections: Gender and Sexuality in Asia and the Pacific 38 (2015). Australian National University http://intersections.anu.edu.au/issue38/lenzi.html accessed 21.4.2020.
“Lost and Found: Tracing Pre-Modern Cultural Heritages in Southeast Asian Contemporary Art.” In Connecting Art and Heritage, ed. Bui Thi Thanh Mai, 117-141. Hanoi: Vietnam University of Fine Arts/The Gioi Publishers, 2013.
Lasalle College of the Arts, Singapore, December 2018
Co-convener of Art and Action –Contemporary Art and Discourse in Southeast Asia, three-day international conference on Southeast Asian art history and and practices.
Bangkok Art and Culture Centre and Cemeti Art House, Jogjakarta, Indonesia, August 2016
In conjunction with the travelling exhibition “Concept Context Contestation Jogja”, conceptualised, co-organised a two-day international forum on Southeast Asian art history and curation.
National Arts Council Singapore, for Singapore Art Week, January, 2015
Designed and moderated three thematic round-tables with international scholars and field specialists on art history, curation, and criticism in Singapore and Southeast Asia.
ART Paris/National Arts Council Singapore, Grand Palais, Paris, March 2015
Designed and moderated round-table with Southeast Asian cultural specialists to compare institutional curatorial strategies in Southeast Asia and Europe.
Goethe Institut, Hanoi, June 2015
Conceptualised and moderated one-day forum on contemporary Southeast Asian practice, art history, and curation.
Bangkok Art and Culture Centre, Bangkok, 2014
Conceptualised a two-day international forum on Southeast Asian art history, criticism and curation in conjunction with the BACC Bangkok exhibition “Concept Context Contestation -art and the collective in Southeast Asia”.
National Heritage Board, Singapore, 2012
Conceptualised and presented a series of public lectures on Singapore modern and contemporary art history.
ConversAsians, Esplanade Theatres on the Bay, Singapore, May 2010.
Conceptualised and moderated multi-artist forum on Southeast Asian contemporary art.
Bulgarian Academy of Science, Sofia University, 13-15 November, 2025.
Word-Play: Language and Power in Vietnamese Contemporary art, for the conference “Vietnam Up Close: Heritage Continuity Future.” Publication forthcoming.
Vietnam University of Fine Arts, Hanoi, 24-25 May 2025.
Emerging Contemporary Art in 1990s Vietnam: Hanoi University of Fine Arts contributions to pluridisciplinarity and text-image integration, for the symposium celebrating 100 Years of VUFA. Published.
School of Humanities, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, 24-25 April 2024.
Not Nostalgia heritage, the everyday, and vernacular forms as persisting critical devices of contemporary Southeast Asian art, for the symposium “Reflections on Southeast Asian Studies: The Past, Present and Future”. Unpublished
Vietnam Academy of Social Sciences (VASS), Hanoi, 6th International Conference on Vietnamese Studies (ICVNS2021), August 2021
Emerging Vietnamese contemporary art in the đổi mới-1990s: locally-sourced art historical shift and the image-text alliance, for the conference "Viet Nam’s Active Integration and Sustainable Development." Unpublished.
Asia Culture Centre, Gwangju, South Korea, December 2018
Expressive non-alignment and Southeast Asian Art’s critical turn, for the conference “From Bandung to Gwangju: Non-Aligned Movement, the Third Worldism, and Asian Art.” Unpublished.
University of Hawaii at Manoa, Honolulu, The Center for Southeast Asian Studies, November 2017
Guns and Greenbacks: Southeast Asian Art in Critical Dialogue with Power.
And Not Nostalgia: How Tradition is critically co-opted in Thai and Vietnamese contemporary art, for the symposium “Tradition and Contemporaneity in the Arts of Asia”, convened by the Department of Art and Art History. Unpublished.
Musée des Beaux Arts d’Angers, France, November 2017
L’art contemporain engagé d’Asie du Sud-Est : Attraction et Action. Unpublished.
Vietnam National University and VASS, Hanoi, 5th International Conference on Vietnamese Studies (ICVNS2016), December 2016
Vietnamese Art in the World: the role of international exhibitions in creating art historical sustainability (with Natalia Kraevskaia), for the Conference “Vietnam on the Road to Integration and Sustainable Development”. Unpublished.
International Institute for Asian Studies (IIAS), Leiden, the Netherlands, March 2016
Word-Power: How Vietnamese contemporary art integrates language in a visual practice of contestation, for the conference “Language, Power and Identity in Asia: Creating and Crossing Language Boundaries”. Unpublished.
TransCultural Exchange, Boston University /MIT, February 2016
Stealing Public Space: Audiences and Activism in Southeast Asian Contemporary Art at the Turn of the Millennium, for the conference “Expanding Worlds”. E-Published.
Project Southeast Asia and the Asian Studies Centre, University of Oxford, March 2013
Negotiating cultural hybridity in turn-of-the-century Vietnam: visual art as a test-case (with N. Kraevskaia), on the panel “Stranger Parallels: Foreignness in Southeast Asian Arts”. Unpublished.
Vietnam National University and VASS, Hanoi, 4th International Conference on Vietnamese Studies (ICVNS2012), December 2012
Cultural exchange in Vietnamese contemporary art: loss or gain? (with Natalia Kraevskaia). Published.
Goethe Institut, Southeast Asia, and Galeri Nasional, Jakarta, 2012 (convened Prof. Werner Kraus, Passau University, Germany)
Treading in the foot-steps of Raden Saleh: the role of history in recent Southeast Asian art, for the Raden Saleh Conference “On Hybrid Times”. Unpublished.
Vu Dan Tan Museum, Hanoi, 2025. Vu Dan Tan Citizen of the World-forging contemporary art in 1990s Hanoi. Inaugural exhibition of Vu Dan Tan Museum, Hanoi. Publication.
ARTBasel, Hong Kong, Kabinett, 2025. Spotlight on Vu Dan Tan, pioneer of Vietnamese Contemporary Art. Publication.
The Substation, Singapore, 2020. Stealing Public Space: how Southeast Asian contemporary art co-opts the city and other collectives sites. Eight-country, 32-work Southeast Asian contemporary art exhibition commissioned and historic pieces. Publication.
BACC Bangkok/Goethe Institut, Yangon, 2019. Concept Context Contestation: art and the collective in Southeast Asia, travelling version. Eight-country, 45-work Southeast Asian contemporary art exhibition, commissioned and historic pieces. Publication.
Institute of Contemporary Art, Singapore, October 2018 Moving Pledges: Art and Action in Southeast Asia. 14-artist Southeast Asian contemporary art exhibition, commissioned and historic pieces.
Bangkok Art and Culture Centre, Bangkok, 2017. Displaced: the politics of ethnicity and religion in the art of Jakkai Siributr. Solo exhibition, commissioned and existing pieces. Publication.
Goethe Institut, Hanoi, 2016. Vu Dan Tan and Music. Solo exhibition, historic pieces. Publication, English and Vietnamese.
BACC Bangkok/Cemeti Art House, Jogjakarta, 2016. Concept Context Contestation: art and the collective in Southeast Asia, travelling version. Eight-country, 40-artist Southeast Asian contemporary art exhibition, commissioned and historic pieces. Publication.
Singapore Festival in France, Grand Palais, Paris, 2015. Southeast Asian Video Art at Grand Palais. Works by Ho Tzu Nyen, Boo Junfeng, FX Harsono, Dinh Q. Le, Manit Sriwanichpoom, Ng. Trinh Thi, et al.
ART PARIS/National Heritage Board Singapore, 2015. Hua Kuan Sai in Paris, commissioning curator for site-specific public artwork for Grand Palais Plaza, Ling Ting no. 2 (Singapore in France Festival).
Goethe Institut, Yangon, 2015. Making History. Four-country, 9-artist Southeast Asian contemporary art exhibition, commissioned pieces.
BACC Bangkok/Goethe Institut, Hanoi, 2015. Concept Context Contestation: art and the collective in Southeast Asia, travelling version. Eight-country, 45-work Southeast Asian contemporary art exhibition, commissioned and historic pieces. Publication.
ARTER Space for Art/Koc Foundation, Istanbul, 2014. The Roving Eye-Contemporary art from Southeast Asia. Eight-country, 40-works exhibition, commissioned and historic pieces. Multi-essay publication, English and Turkish.
Goethe Institut/Ho Chi Minh Museum of Fine Arts, Ho Chi Minh City, 2014. Venus in Vietnam-Vu Dan Tan and Nguyen Nghia Cuong. Historic pieces. Publication, English and Vietnamese.
Samsung Corporation- Masterpieces Digital Art Gallery, 2013-2016.
Sixty-artist commissioned virtual museum of art from Singapore, Malaysia, and the Philippines.
Bangkok Art and Culture Centre, Bangkok, 2013. Concept Context Contestation: art and the collective in Southeast Asia (lead curator). Eight country, 60-works Southeast Asian contemporary art exhibition, commissioned and historic pieces. Multi-essay publication, English and Thai.
Goethe Institut, Hanoi, 2012. Venus in Vietnam-Vu Dan Tan and Nguyen Nghia Cuong. Historic pieces. Publication, English and Vietnamese.
Goethe Institut, Hanoi, 2012. Riverscapes in FLUX (co-curation). Six-country Southeast Asian contemporary art exhibition, commissioned pieces. Publication, English and Vietnamese.
Esplanade Theatres on the Bay, Singapore, 2011. Aung Ko’s Village. Solo exhibition, commissioned pieces. Brochure.
Singapore Art Museum, 2011. Negotiating Home, History and Nation: two decades of contemporary art in Southeast Asia 1991-2011 (guest curator). Six-country, 70-work Southeast Asian contemporary art exhibition, predominantly historic and commissioned pieces. Multi-essay publication.
Esplanade, Theatres on the Bay, Singapore, 2010. Making History: how Southeast Asian art reconquers the past to conjure the future. Six-country, eight artist Southeast Asian contemporary art exhibition, commissioned pieces. Publication.
Esplanade, Theatres on the Bay, Singapore, 2009. Arahmaiani: I Love You. Solo exhibition, commissioned site-specific installation and performance. Brochure.
VWFA & Galeri Nasional Indonesia, Jakarta, 2008. Red Planet-Vasan Sitthiket. Solo exhibition, commissioned pieces. Publication, English and Bahasa Indonesia.
James W. Thompson Foundation, Bangkok, 2006. Arahmaiani in Bangkok: Stitching the Wound. Solo exhibition, commissioned site-specific and performance pieces. Multi-essay publication, English and Thai.
Sculpture Square, Singapore, 2004. Reformasi: Contemporary Indonesian Artists in the post-Suharto Era. Ten-artist Indonesian contemporary art exhibition, commissioned and recent pieces.
Sculpture Square, Singapore, 2003. Subverted Boundaries. Singapore/Thailand/Vietnam contemporary art exhibition, historic and commissioned pieces.
(Forthcoming 2026) “Word Games in 1990s Vietnamese contemporary art: Nguyễn Văn Cường’s interdisciplinary Toy’s Communication at Nhà Sàn Studio, Hanoi”. In Nha San 25 Years, ed. Arlette Quynh-Anh Tran. Hanoi: British Council/Nha San Collective, 2023. (English, Vietnamese)
Contributing writer, SEA Contemporary Art in Southeast Asia, Ute Meta Bauer, Karin Oen, Tan Boon Hui eds. Singapore: The Institutum (Weiss Publications), 2022.
“Go Between: Mobility, position, polarity, and choice in the art of Mella Jaarsma”. In Mella Jaarsma Works, 106-130. Jakarta: Museum Nasional, 2021. (English, Bahasa Indonesia)
“Deconstructing the history-probing idiom of Manit Sriwanichpoom’s photographic series Horror in Pink”. In Pink Man Story, ed. Manit Sriwanichpoom, 259-271. Bangkok: Kathmandu, 2020. (English, Thai)
“Stealing Public Space and Southeast Asian Art’s Contemporary Turn: siting, audience involvement, and performativity in Southeast Asian contemporary art”. In Stealing Public Space: How Southeast Asian contemporary art co-opts the city and other collective sites, ed. by Iola Lenzi , 6-19. Singapore: The Substation, 2020.
“Jakkai Siributr’s Aesthetics of Contestation: a view of minority Muslims in Buddhist Southeast Asia”. In Displaced-the politics of ethnicity and religion in the art of Jakkai Siributr, ed. by Iola Lenzi, 2-13. Bangkok: Bangkok Art and Culture Centre, 2017.
“Conceptual Strategies in Southeast Asian Art: a local narrative”. In Concept Context Contestation: art and the collective in Southeast Asia, ed. by Iola Lenzi, 10-25. Bangkok: Bangkok Art and Culture Centre, 2014. (English, Thai)
“The Artists Village and the Birth of Contemporary Art in Singapore- Koh Nguang How in conversation with Iola Lenzi”. In Concept Context Contestation: art and the collective in Southeast Asia, ed. by Iola Lenzi, 190-195. Bangkok: Bangkok Art and Culture Centre, 2014. (English, Thai)
“The Roving Eye: Southeast Asian Art’s Plural Views on Self, Culture, and Nation.” In The Roving Eye: Contemporary Art from Southeast Asia, edited by Iola Lenzi and Ilkay Balic, 30-47. Istanbul: KOC Foundation/Arter Space for Art, 2014. (English, Turkish)
“What’s in a name? diasporic memory and the place of community in the art of FX Harsono”. In Edge of Elsewhere, 44-48. Campbelltown, Aus: Campbelltown Arts Centre/4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art, 2014.
“Politics and Bons-Mots”. In The Other Singapore Story-TOSS Series by Tang Mun Kit, 38-41. Singapore: The Substation, 2013.
“Negotiating Home, History and Nation”. In Negotiating Home, History and Nation: two decades of contemporary art in Southeast Asia 1991-2011, ed. by Iola Lenzi, 7-28. Singapore: Singapore Art Museum, 2011.
“Art as Voice: political Art in Southeast Asia at the Turn of the Twenty-First Century”. On Line Perspectives, Asia Art Archive Hong Kong, 2011 http://www.aaa.org.hk/Diaaalogue/Details/1057 accessed 16.7.2019.
“Beyond the Object: how Natee Utarit paints the Nation”. In Natee Utarit: After Painting, 26-31. Singapore: Singapore Art Museum, 2010.
“Context, content and meaning: threads of perception beyond the veil”. In Arahmaiani in Bangkok: Stitching the Wound, ed. by Iola Lenzi, 16-27. Bangkok: The James W. Thompson Foundation, 2006. (English, Thai)
“No HARD LINES: gender politics in contemporary Southeast Asian art: does a woman’s vernacular exist”. In Temporary Insanity-Pinaree Sanpitak, eds. Jane Puranananda and Gridthya Gaweewong, 22-31. Bangkok: The James W. Thompson Foundation, 2004. (English, Thai)
Exhaustive list of publications, including art criticism, available on request.