Education Programme at Ink Asia 2023
6 & 7 October 2023
Lecture Room, Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre
Friday, 6 October, 5:00 to 6:00pm
“Summoning Memories: Ink Art Beyond Chinese Traditions”
Dr Susan L. Beningson, Independent curator
Dr Susan Beningson will discuss how established and emerging artists of Chinese descent reinterpret artistic practices, materials and cultural traditions in dynamic and innovative ways. These artists of different generations and backgrounds push boundaries manipulating traditional ideas and techniques while deconstructing language and cultural memories to create experimental ink painting and calligraphy.
In English
Saturday, 7 October, 2:00 to 3:00pm
“Developing Ink Exhibitions and Collection at The National Gallery Singapore”
Dr Cai Heng 蔡珩, Senior Curator, National Gallery Singapore
Modern and contemporary ink has been a significant part of the National Gallery Singapore's curatorial vision since the Gallery's opening in 2015. This talk will introduce Hong Kong audiences, collectors, and ink lovers to the Gallery's exhibition planning and collection development in the global context of modern and contemporary ink.
In English
Saturday, 7 October, 3:15 to 4:15pm
“Stories from the Chinese painting collection at the British Museum: A Curator’s perspective”
Luk Yu-ping 陸於平, Basil Gray Curator: Chinese Paintings, Prints and Central Asian Collections, British Museum
The British Museum has a collection of around 2,000 Chinese paintings spanning from about the fifth century to the present. The range of paintings is also very broad, from Buddhist votive images, classical paintings, to watercolours for export and contemporary artworks. This talk introduces three paintings from the collection: Tribute Horse and Camel, a tenth-century sketch from the Library Cave, Dunhuang, Portrait of an Official in Front of the Forbidden City by the Ming painter Zhu Bang, and Paradise for Small Birds by Wu Guanzhong from the twentieth century. Through these very different paintings, this talk reflects on aspects of museum work that have shaped the Chinese painting collection: acquisitions, conservation, research, as well as gallery displays and temporary exhibitions.
In English
Saturday, 7 October, 5:00 to 6:00pm
Panel Discussion: Conversation with Liu Kuo-sung
This panel will reflect on the art, creativity and life of pioneering master artist Liu Kuo-sung.
Dr Cai Heng 蔡珩, Senior Curator, National Gallery Singapore
Liu Kuo-sung 劉國松, Artist
Tina Pang 彭綺雲, Curator, Hong Kong Visual Culture, M+
Moderator: Dr Joe Zhu Chunhang 朱春杭, Independent curator
In Mandarin
Biographies
Susan L. Beningson
Dr. Susan L. Beningson is an independent curator and professor of Asian Art history at New York University. Her forthcoming exhibition, the retrospective Xu Bing: Word Alchemy, will open at Asia Society Texas (AST) in February 2024. Recent exhibitions include Summoning Memories: Art Beyond Chinese Traditions (AST, 2023) on contemporary ink painting by artists of Chinese descent; We the People: Xu Bing and Sun Xun Respond to the Declaration of Independence (Asia Society Triennial NY, 2021); and One: Xu Bing (2019-2020) and Infinite Blue (2016-2019) at the Brooklyn Museum. From 2013 through 2019 she was a curator of Asian Art at the Brooklyn Museum and reinstalled the permanent Arts of China galleries and co-curated the Arts of Korea galleries. Dr. Beningson was also responsible for the acquisition of more than fifty contemporary works of art for the Brooklyn Museum’s permanent Asian Art collection. She formerly worked at Princeton University Art Museum. Dr. Beningson received her PhD in Chinese art and archaeology from Columbia University focusing on Buddhist cave-temples at Dunhuang and the ancient Silk Roads.
Cai Heng
Dr Cai Heng holds a PhD in Art History and Theory from The University of Sydney and is currently a Senior Curator at the National Gallery Singapore. As a curator and art historian, she has contributed to a series of exhibitions and publications, including Siapa Nama Kamu: Art in Singapore since the 19th Century (2015), Rediscover Treasures: Ink Art From The Xiu Hai Lou Collection(2017), Strokes of Life: The Art of Chen Chong Swee(2017), Georgette Chen: At Home in the World (2020), Liu Kuo-sung: Experimentation as Method (2023) and Wu Guanzhong exhibition series (2015-2022). Her research focuses on modern and contemporary ink, modern Chinese art, and the art of the Chinese diaspora.
Liu Kuo-sung
A founder of the Taiwanese modernist art group Fifth Moon Society, Liu Kuo-sung created a new language of ink painting by synthesizing western and Chinese artistic practices. From as early as the 1960s, Liu’s pioneering works have been widely exhibited in Hong Kong, Europe and the US. In 2016, Liu was elected by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (AAAS) as a Foreign Honorary Member—the first Chinese artist to earn this honour. As an art educator, he has nurtured many young ink artists over the past few decades. In 2019, the Liu Kuo-sung Foundation and the Ink Society inaugurated the biennial Liu Kuo-sung Ink Art Award.
Luk Yu-ping
Dr Luk Yu-Ping is the Basil Gray Curator: Chinese Paintings, Prints and Central Asian Collections at the British Museum. Previously, she was a curator at the V&A, project curator of the British Museum exhibition Ming: 50 Years that Changed China, and assistant professor at Lingnan University, Hong Kong. She received her DPhil at the University of Oxford. Her publications have mainly focused on empresses in Ming and Qing China. She is currently working on a Silk Roads exhibition planned for 2024-5.
Tina Pang
Tina Pang is a Curator at M+, Hong Kong’s museum of visual culture, part of the West Kowloon Cultural District, where she has responsibility for public programmes, exhibitions and displays related to the visual culture of the city. As part of the museum’s founding curatorial team, she also contributes to the building of the museum's collections. For the opening of M+ in November 2021, she led the team behind the museum’s inaugural exhibition of Hong Kong visual culture, and edited Hong Kong Visual Culture: The M+ Guide published by Thames and Hudson (2021). In 2017, she curated the M+ Pavilion exhibition, Ambiguously Yours: Gender in Hong Kong Popular Culture.
Joe Zhu
Dr Joe Zhu is an independent curator. He received his PhD in the Fine Arts department at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, focusing on higher education of contemporary art in China. From 2008 to 2016, Joe was an art journalist writing for publications such as City Express (Hangzhou), the South China Morning Post, The Art Newspaper and Artnet News. He won the first prize of the Hangzhou News Award in 2011.
As a curator, he won the 2012 UK-China Art Management Placement Programme and was involved in the Artes Mundi in Cardiff, Wales, and the Liverpool Biennial. Joe was also the translator of Reflection on the Condition of Recent Chinese Art (Robert C. Morgan, 2011, Hebei Education Publishing House), and Michael Müller: An Exhibition as a Copy (Michael Müller, 2018, Galerie du Monde). He was the Chief Editor of the publication in 2022 titled Liu Kuo-sung—A Celebration at 90 (Lilyleaf Ltd).