Kris Imants Ercums

Kris Ercums relocated from Beijing, China, to work as Curator of Asian Art at the Spencer Museum in 2007, where he stewards over 7,000 historical artworks from East Asia. In 2011, his duties expanded to include global contemporary art and working with living artists. Ercums completed his PhD dissertation “Exhibiting Modernity: National Art Exhibitions in China during the Early Republican Period, 1911–1937” at the University of Chicago, where he also began his museum career as an intern at the Smart Museum of Art in 1998. His research interests include pan-Asian visual modernity, postcolonial science fiction, queer studies, and LGBTQ+ artistic practices.