50 Artists: Jimenez Lai

The thousands of artworks at SFMOMA offer countless opportunities to look closely and think deeply about some of the most amazing artists of our time. To celebrate both the artists on view in the newly expanded museum and the creative communities of the Bay Area, 50 Artists invites local artists and creative professionals to share how icons of modern and contemporary art matter to them. This week, Los Angeles-based designer and founding partner of architecture studio Bureau Spectacular Jimenez Lai provides a unique window into his piece insideoutsidebetweenbeyond, which SFMOMA acquired in 2015.

Lai works in the world of art, architecture and education. Previously, he lived and worked in a desert shelter at Taliesin and resided in a shipping container at Atelier van Lieshout on the piers of Rotterdam. Before founding Bureau Spectacular, Lai worked for various international offices, including MOS and OMA. Lai is widely exhibited and published around the world, including at the MoMA-collected White Elephant. His first book, Citizens of No Place, was published by Princeton Architectural Press with a grant from the Graham Foundation. Draft II of this book has been archived at the New Museum as a part of the show Younger Than Jesus. Lai has won various awards, including the Architectural League Prize for Young Architects and Debut Award at the Lisbon Triennale. In 2014, Lai designed the Taiwan Pavilion at the 14th Venice Architectural Biennale. In 2015, Lai organized the Treatise exhibition and publication series at the Graham Foundation. In 2016, Bureau Spectacular was named a finalist in MoMA’s PS1 Young Architects Program. In 2017, Lai and his studio exhibited a large scale installation at SFMOMA based on the drawing insideoutsidebetweenbeyond (2014).