From fashion that challenges dualisms to costumes that embodies the superhero, Neil Wu-Gibbs has a passion for curating diverse and international exhibitions that define eras and cultures. Neil thrives as an independent curator and fashion historian with specialties in the 20th and 21st century fashion and a specific focus on fashion museology and contemporary Asian fashion and art. Currently, Neil is the Executive Assistant to the President and Special Events Coordinator at the Museum of Chinese in America in New York City, in which he advocates for diverse Asian communities and preserves their history in a globalized world.
Neil has expanded his curatorial experience by developing dynamic artistic programming and researching multi-continental exhibitions. Neil recently collaborated with the German producer Semmel Concerts Entertainment GmbH, Studio TK, and Marvel Entertainment to produce the Spring 2018 touring exhibition Marvel: Universe of Super Heroes at the Museum of Pop Culture, Seattle. He was a curatorial researcher for the Summer 2018 exhibition WAVELENGTH: RE-SET at the Powerlong Museum, Shanghai. He also served as the moderator for the public program “Jin Teok: Pioneer of Korean Fashion” for the Fall 2017 exhibition Couture Korea at the Asian Art Museum, San Francisco. He was a curatorial researcher at The Costume Institute at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, where he contributed to the Spring 2017 exhibition Rei Kawakubo/Comme des Garçons: Art of the In-Between, the Spring 2016 exhibition Manus x Machina: Fashion in an Age of Technology, and the Fall 2016 show Masterworks: Unpacking Fashion. He also conducted extensive curatorial research for Fairy Tale Fashion at The Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology. In addition, Neil installed and handled objects from the Summer 2015 show Matthew Weiner’s Mad Men at the Museum of the Moving Image and the Spring 2017 exhibition Counter-Couture: Handmade Fashion in an American Counterculture at the Museum of Arts and Design.
Neil acquired teaching and educational experience as an adjunct lecturer with Sphinx International Art Education. He designed an e-learning program and taught the online course Global Markets: Fashion and Art for high school and college students in China. Neil also worked with BRIC Contemporary Art, a nonprofit cultural institution in Brooklyn, for the Fall 2016 exhibition BRIC Biennial: Volume II, Bed Stuy/Crown Heights and the Spring 2017 exhibits Surface Matters and Public Access/Open Networks. Neil earned his Master of Arts in Fashion Studies from Parsons School of Design, The New School in New York, having previously received his Bachelor of Arts (Honours) in Fashion and Textile Management from Nottingham Trent University in the UK.
Neil is proud to be a steering committee member of The Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Queer Alliance (LGBTQ Alliance) of The American Alliance of Museums (AAM) and a contributor to the LGBTQ Welcoming Guidelines for Museums. He was the awardee of the 2017 Annual Fellowship of Diversity, Equity, Accessibility, and Inclusion by The AAM and the presenter at its Emerging Innovators Forum in 2017.
He works and lives in Manhattan, New York.
Résumé
