Dr. Aleesa Pitchamarn Alexander is the Robert M. and Ruth L. Halperin Associate Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art and Co-Director of the Asian American Art Initiative (AAAI) at the Cantor Arts Center at Stanford University, where she has worked for over seven years. In this dual role, she advances critical narratives of modern and contemporary art with a particular focus on the work of Asian American and diasporic artists. Co-founded with Stanford art history professor Marci Kwon, the AAAI is an ongoing, research-driven project that expands scholarship, public awareness, and institutional support for Asian American art. Through exhibitions, publications, public programs, and collection-building, the initiative centers the work of artists and makers whose contributions have historically been marginalized or overlooked.
Aleesa oversees the AAAI’s curatorial program and collection development, collaborating closely with artists, artist estates, galleries, and collectors to build one of the most significant collections of Asian American art in the United States. At the Cantor, she has organized and supported more than a dozen exhibitions in connection with the AAAI. She is the curator of Spirit House (2024) and East of the Pacific: Making Histories of Asian American Art (2022), both landmark projects that are currently traveling to their third venues. Before joining the Cantor, Aleesa was the Jane and Morgan Whitney Fellow in the Department of Modern and Contemporary Art at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. She received her PhD in the History of Art and Architecture from the University of California, Santa Barbara. Aleesa is currently working on a major survey book on Asian American artists with Phaidon, due in 2027, the first comprehensive resource on over 250 artists from the 19th century to today.
