X Zhu-Nowell is a curator, writer, and institutional leader who lives and works between New York and Shanghai. X Zhu-Nowell has been a curator at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York since 2014, where they have led important acquisition activities, exhibition projects, research initiatives, and institution-building processes within the museum. Most notably, they founded Asian Art Circle at the Guggenheim, an acquisition group dedicated to facilitating the museum's ongoing efforts to diversify and strengthen its programming and collection through a concerted focus on the contributions of emerging and established artists from Asia and the diaspora. Their rotunda exhibition Wu Tsang: Anthem was awarded as the best exhibition of 2021 by both the New York Times and Artforum. In December 2022, they co-organized the Guggenheim's 6th Asian Art Council meeting in Kingston, Jamaica, with artist Kandis Williams on curatorial and white cube attempts to address dispossession and hybridity.

X Zhu-Nowell is invested in curatorial activities of varying scales, durations, and forms, responding to specific contexts and conditions. They have recently collaborated with artists including Candice Lin, Nick Cave, Jacolby Satterwhite, Tourmaline, Korakrit Arunanondchai, Sin Wai Kin, Irena Haiduk, Adrián Villar Rojas, NZTT Sewing Co-Op, Hugh Hayden, Saodat Ismailova, Every Ocean Hughes, Farah Al Qasimi, Goutam Ghosh, Li Shuang, Jonathas de Andrade, Heman Chong among others. Prior to joining the Guggenheim Museum in 2014, they were part of the curatorial team for the 14th Istanbul Biennial SALTWATER: A Theory of Thought Forms. X Zhu-Nowell has lectured and published widely on exhibition histories and institutional practices (or the lack thereof), focusing on artist interventions in Asia and the diaspora. They hold a master's degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.