Guggenheim curator from 2012 to 2014
June Yap was selected by a committee of five esteemed experts in South and Southeast Asian art as the Curator of Guggenheim UBS MAP Global Art Initiative in spring of 2012. She is currently in a two-year residency at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York. Yap is actively curating the first exhibition in the initiative, No Country: Contemporary Art for South and Southeast Asia, which focuses on the artistic practices and cultural traditions of South and Southeast Asia. The first exhibition will travel to two other venues, one of which will be in the region, following the opening exhibition at the Guggenheim Museum in New York on February 22, 2013.
Based in Singapore and currently in New York for her residency, Yap has been an independent curator since 2008. Most recently she organized an exhibition of the work of Ho Tzu Nyen for the Singapore Pavilion at the Venice Biennale in 2011. In 2010, Yap curated You and I, We’ve Never Been so Far Apart: Works From Asia for the Center for Contemporary Art in Tel Aviv for the International Video Art Biennial.
Prior to 2008, Yap worked in the curatorial departments of the Institute of Contemporary Arts in Singapore and the Singapore Art Museum. She has organized exhibitions in Italy, Germany, Hong Kong, Malaysia, and Singapore. Projects include Interrupt (2003), Twilight Tomorrow (2004), Seni: Singapore 2004, and Art & the Contemporary (2004) at the Singapore Art Museum; The Second Dance Song: New Contemporaries (2006) and The Future of Exhibition: It Feels Like I’ve Been Here Before (2010) at the Institute of Contemporary Arts Singapore; and Bound for Glory (2008) at the National University of Singapore Museum. Yap is the author of numerous exhibition catalogues and essays, and has conducted curatorial workshops in Singapore, South Korea, and Hong Kong.
Yap is also currently a PhD candidate in the Cultural Studies in Asia program at the National University of Singapore. She holds a MA in fine art (art history) from the University of Melbourne, as well as BA from the National University of Singapore in philosophy and sociology.