Professor of Art Simon Leung Selected for “Artforum's” Best of 2024: Critics' Favorite Critics

Leung’s recognition highlights his continuing impact on contemporary Asian American art

UC Irvine Professor of Art Simon Leung has been recognized in Artforum’s Best of 2024: Critics’ Favorite Critics section, a new feature spotlighting the year’s most compelling contributions to criticism. Art historian Joan Kee, the newly appointed director of New York University’s Institute of Fine Arts and scholar of modern and contemporary art in Asia and the United States, selected Leung’s insightful reflections for this honor.

Kee highlighted Leung’s poignant assertion that Asian American art is “always already a theory of democracy.” This statement, Kee elaborates, redefines traditional narratives of representation, emphasizing the role of Asian American art in safeguarding public space and cultivating critical inquiry. Leung’s perspective challenges institutions to imagine democracy as both a negotiation of rights and an ethical commitment to inclusion and connection.

Simon Leung’s expansive body of work investigates "the ethical,” as it relates to the residual impacts of the Vietnam War, to the political dimensions of AIDS and the intersections of art and activism. Working across mediums stretching from video, performance, sculpture, drawing, critical theory, fiction and opera, Leung examines the ethical considerations that manifest in historical, political and cultural contexts through art. His projects have been exhibited locally and internationally at the Whitney Biennial, Venice Biennale, Guangzhou Triennial, Art Institute of Chicago, Museum of Modern Art, Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles and more.

Joan Kee’s selection of Leung's work showcases his enduring impact on contemporary art and criticism, reinforcing the importance of his scholarship at the intersection of art, politics, and identity.

To learn more about ArtForum’s Best of 2024: Critics’ Favorite Critics list, visit here. For more information on Simon Leung’s work, visit his Department of Art bio page here.