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IAC Art Talks Series 2 Lecture Two : Rethinking the Chinese Art Curator’s Role: A Case Study in Australia by Yin Cao (Catch up Online)

Traditionally a curator is seen as a keeper of a museum or a collection and an organiser of an exhibition. With a new definition being adopted by the International Council of Museums in 2022, in which a museum is expected to be in service of a broader society and its audience with diverse cultural and social political backgrounds, a curator in a public museum is required to re-evaluate his/her/their role to meet this new challenge and opportunity. A curator is one active member of a museum team whose goal is to offer varied experiences for education, enjoyment, reflection and knowledge sharing through exhibition and public engagement programs which reflect the broader communities’ interests.

Dr Geoff Raby AO began collecting works of art by emerging Chinese artists in early 1986 and from those initial roots his collection grew into a four-decade project, documenting the growth and maturity of the contemporary China art movement with more than 75 artists represented. In this talk, Dr Raby discusses how and why he assembled the collection and shares stories of particular works of art and the artists that created them.

There is excellent Chinese art within public collections in Australia, ranging in date from the Shang dynasty (c 1700 - 1027 BCE) through to the present, and representing a wide range of media. Collections are extremely varied, reflecting a combination of formal acquisition policies and the specialist interests and ambitions of diverse curators, collectors, and donors. This talk is an overview of the strengths of different public art collections and the people responsible from the first examples of Chinese art acquired by a public collection.

In this talk, highly celebrated artist Dapeng Liu will be taking a close look at the flourishing art period in China between the 1910s and late 1930s known as the Western-Style painting Movement (yanghua yundong 洋画运动). At that time a considerable number of students were passionately pursuing their art education in Europe, the United States and Japan, while Western-style art schools, associations and societies were developing at home.

Chinoiserie is an artistic style that emerged in Europe during the 17th and 18th centuries. It was fuelled by the fascination with the exotic and the mystique surrounding ‘The East’ which captivated the imagination of European artists and craftsmen. In this talk, one of Australia’s leading textile designers Chris Chun explores the multifaceted history of chinoiserie and provide a fascinating overview of its enduring influence from its inception through to present day.

Why do so many contemporary Chinese artists use porcelain in their work? In his newly published book "New Export China: Translations Across Time and Place in Contemporary Chinese Porcelain Art", art historian Dr Burchmore dives into this unique genre of ceramic art in search of a broader framework for contemporary Chinese artistic practice. In this talk, Dr Burchmore introduces one of the four artists featured in the book: Ah Xian, a familiar name for art lovers across Australia, and especially in Sydney.

For Lecture 3, IAC is honoured and privileged to have invited Yvett Klein who has been an Asian Art Specialist at the Bonhmas since 2011 and received two Masters’ degrees from the University of Sydney, one in Museum Studies, the other in Art History for which she was awarded the Francis Stuart Prize for outstanding research in Asian Art. Yvett shares with our audiences “Chance Encounters: Untold Tales of Great Journeys made by some Chinese Paintings found in Australia”.

From the Modernist Storm Society in Shanghai in the 1920s, to Bohemian artist enclaves in the early years of Reform and Opening, and to a generation of global artists today, Chinese women artists carved out their space within a patriarchal artworld that tended to exclude them. Delivered by Dr Luise Guest, an independent writer, researcher and curator, this lecture introduces Chinese women artists of three generations.

Delivered by Dr Guan Wei, an icon of Chinese Australian contemporary art, an internationally renowned artist and Adjunct Fellow of IAC, the Inaugural Lecture of IAC Art Talks focused on both his journey searching for identity, position and presence and also that of other artists of Asian backgrounds.

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