Chicago-born Aric Chen is an American design critic, curator, and writer. In New York, where he moved in 1997, he contributed to the nascent interest in international contemporary design. Since 2008 Chen has lived in China, in Beijing, Shanghai, and Hong Kong, where he served as the inaugural design curator at M+, developing the museum’s collection. After a three-year stint as curatorial director of Design Miami, Chen just moved to Rotterdam, where he has started as general and artistic director of Het Nieuwe Instituut, the foremost Dutch architecture and design collection.