David Teh

David Teh

Associate Professor, National University of Singapore, Singapore.

Biography:

David Teh is a writer, curator and Associate Professor at the National University of Singapore, studying the histories and theory of contemporary art. His current research explores the curatorial function and the effects – both instrumental and aesthetic – of regionalism in Asian art and exhibition history.

Teh’s own curatorial projects have included Unreal Asia (55. Internationale Kurzfilmtage Oberhausen, 2009), Video Vortex #7 (Yogyakarta, 2011), TRANSMISSION (Jim Thompson Art Center, Bangkok, 2014), Misfits: Pages from a Loose-leaf Modernity (HKW Berlin, 2017), Returns (12th Gwangju Biennale, 2018), and the 17th Istanbul Biennial (with Ute Meta Bauer and Amar Kanwar, 2022).

Most recently, he served as Artistic Co-director of Thailand Biennale Phuket, 2025-26. Teh has contributed catalogue essays on the work of Ho Tzu Nyen, Arahmaiani and Rirkrit Tiravanija, among many other artists. His critical essays have appeared in Third Text, Afterall, ArtAsiaPacific, ARTMargins, Theory, Culture and Society and Artforum. His book Thai Art: Currencies of the Contemporary was published in 2017 by the MIT Press, and he was co-editor (with David Morris) of 'Artist-to-Artist: Independent Art Festivals in Chiang Mai 1992-98' (2018) for Afterall’s Exhibition Histories series.