New Director of Jakarta’s Museum MACAN
By Camilla Alvarez-Chow
Portrait of VENUS LAU, the next director of Museum MACAN in Jakarta. Courtesy Museum MACAN.
On February 5, Venus Lau was named as the new director of the privately owned Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Nusantara (Museum MACAN), Jakarta. She assumed her role on February 1 and succeeded the inaugural director, Aaron Seeto, who departed at the end of January.
Until July 2023, Lau was the art strategic director of the Meta Media Group (formerly Modern Media Group), a media business group based in Shanghai that owns multiple cultural platforms in China, including The Art Newspaper, Nowness, Art Review, and Numéro Art China. She was also the artistic director of the K11 Art Foundation from September 2017 to November 2019. Earlier in 2015, Lau was the artistic director of OCT Contemporary Art Terminal Shenzhen for two years.
Fenessa Adikoesoemo, chairperson of the Museum MACAN Foundation, expresses her enthusiasm: “[Lau’s] deep commitment to contemporary art in Asia and dedication to fostering cultural engagement in the region align seamlessly with our institution’s focus on high-caliber exhibitions and art accessibility for our community.”
Lau also shared her ambition for the museum during her tenure there: “I am honored to take this next step with MACAN as their new Director, and aim to contribute to the enrichment of the artistic community and wider audiences in Indonesia through the power of contemporary art and public engagement. Together with this talented and dedicated team, I am confident that we will achieve new exhibition milestones and collaboratively shape meaningful chapters ahead at MACAN.”
MACAN has yet to announce its projects and exhibitions for 2024. In the meantime, the museum’s ongoing exhibition “Voice Against Reason” finishes on April 14, 2024, and recently, it held a workshop titled “Trails of the Tongue: Cinavu” on February 3.
Camilla Alvarez-Chow is an editorial assistant at ArtAsiaPacifc.
