Robert Lee is the Executive Director of Asian American Arts Centre
(www.artspiral.org) which is embarking on its 33th year of community programming.
He initiated the Arts Centre's visual arts programming in 1978 drawing
attention to Asian American artists work as a field of special study.
He initiated the first public Archive for Asian American Artists in the
United States encompassing 1500 artists to date. In 1986 he completed
the first overview of the art by Asian American artists, a slide show production
entitled, "The Art of Asian American Artists:Reflections of the Cultural Issues in
Asian American Life", which was shown at the NationalMuseum of American Art in
Washington DC.

Curator, author of several articles on Asian American art, he has
published over twenty catalogues including, "The Mind's I", "Public Art in
Chinatown", "China: June 4, 1989", "Three Generations: Towards a History
of Asian American Art", Contrary Equilibriums: the 12th Annual Exhibition,
and published six issues of Artspiral", an occasional periodical providing a
critical forum for the Arts. In the area of folk arts he has written on
Chinese folk deities, "Nuo" Masks and shadow puppets. He is the executive
producer of a video and a CD, both entitled, "Singing to Remember", about a
Tai Shan storytelling folksinger, Mr. Ng Sheung Chi who, subsequent to the
video, was the first Chinese American to receive a NEA National Heritage
Award. In conjunction with Mayor Dinkins' Office for Asian Affairs and
LEAP Asian Pacific American Public Policy Institute, he curated "We Count! The
State of Asian Pacific America." On the issue of racism he curated
"Ancestors" in conjunction Kenkeleba House on African American and Asian
American relations. The third in a series of historical exhibitions is "Milieu III: Color
in the Art of Natvar Bhavsar, VC Igarta, James Kuo, Ted Kurahara, Seong Moy",
part of an ongoing research project begun in 1986 entitled, "Asian
American Artists and Their Milieu: 1945 to 1965. He has taught a course
on Asian American Art at Parsons School of Design.

Many well known artists today were exhibited by him at the Arts Centre early in their career such as: Ik Joong Kang, Mel Chin, Byron Kim, Ming Fay, Ti Shan Hsu, Albert Chong, Tseng Kwong Chi, Martin Wong, Zhang Hongtu, Yong Soon Min, Kip Fulbeck, Paul Wong, David Y. Chung, Zarina Hashmi, Toshio Sasaki, Dinh Le, Tam Van Tran and Yeong Gill Kim. Other well known artists who have shown at the Arts Centre are: Xu Bing, Alfonso Ossorio, Wenda Gu, Chen Zhen, Krishna Reddy, Ushio Shinohara, Matsumi Kanemitsu, Choong Sup Lim, T. Kim-Trang Tran, Chien-Chi Chang, Nam June Paik, as well as Kenneth Noland, Vito Acconci, Barbara Kruger, Agnes Denes, Leon Golub, Lilliana Porter, Luis Camnitzer, Howardina Pindell, and Faith Ringgold.

Robert studied for his M.A. in art history at the City College of New
York. He worked briefly at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and interned at the
Brooklyn Museum. He studied studio and undergraduate art history at
Rutgers University with sinologist George Weber Jr. and Jack Flam. He
has been working in the Asian American community of New York City since
1970 during which he served as the regional coordinator for the National
Pacific Asian Coalition.

Robert was Chair of The Association of American Cultures in 1993,
(TAAC) a national advocacy organization on diversity in the arts where
he served as a Board Member from 1985 to 1992. Robert was a founding
Board member (1983) of the Asian American Arts Alliance of New York
City, overseeing its operations for more than six years.

Robert has traveled extensively meeting artists and art colleagues
in: India, Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Ireland, England, Prague,
Budapest, Mexico, Canada, Cuba and the People's Republic of China.