Founder & Director
Lan Shi
石兰
Lan Shi is an independent curator and cultural producer working between New York and Beijing. She founded Lan Space in Beijing's Caochangdi art district in 2008, and has been based in New York since 2019.
She studied Art Criticism and Management at the Central Academy of Fine Arts (CAFA) under Professor Yi Ying. Over more than fifteen years working in the Chinese and international contemporary art scene, she has curated and produced over a hundred exhibitions — across institutional galleries, alternative spaces, art fairs, and community contexts.
Her curatorial practice focuses on artists who are developing a distinct voice and visual language, with particular interest in emerging practices, cross-cultural dialogues, and the space between East and West. She currently lives and works in New York.
The Practice
Lan Space was founded in Beijing in 2008 by Lan Shi — first in the Caochangdi art district, where it became a space for discovering and championing emerging contemporary artists. In 2019, Lan Shi moved to New York; in 2025, Lan Space NYC launched as the platform's New York chapter: project-based, cross-cultural, and fully committed to the artists it works with.
The name Lan (兰) means orchid — a flower that blooms in quiet, unhurried ways. That quality of attention is how we approach our work: we take time with artists, with ideas, with communities. We don't curate for spectacle. We curate for connection.
In New York, we work across contexts — galleries, alternative spaces, cultural centers, art fairs — wherever the work makes most sense. We are interested in what happens when different artistic languages meet, and we believe the most interesting conversations happen at the edges of familiar categories.
Our ongoing focus is artists who are developing a distinct visual language, who are embedded in real communities, and who have something genuine to say.
Open for Collaboration
We welcome genuine collaboration inquiries.
Exhibition Curation
Solo or group exhibitions for emerging artists
Artist Development
Long-term collaboration and career support
Art Fair Representation
Representing artists at New York and international fairs
Cross-Cultural Projects
Projects bridging Chinese and American art communities
Contact