皇甫秉惠 Huangfu Binghui
皇甫秉惠[attach]4266[/attach]
目前职位: 澳大利亚悉尼卡苏拉艺术中心代理高级策展人
2003 - 2006：4a 画廊，澳大利亚亚洲艺术中心馆长
1996 - 2003：新加坡厄尔画廊馆长及策展人
策展经验:
2005年2月 游戏：刘晓先新作展，悉尼澳大利亚亚洲艺术中心
2004年11月 程序， 悉尼澳大利亚亚洲艺术中心
2003年六月 继续行进 中国当代艺术展�， 新加坡国家大学博物馆
2003年 科幻小说新加坡厄尔画廊、新加坡亚洲文明博物馆、新加坡美术博物馆
2003年 下一步 泰国当代艺术展� ，新加坡厄尔画廊
2002年 地点和景点- 翻译文化 ，新加坡厄尔画廊
2000年 壁画- 指定地点装置艺术，新加坡厄尔画廊
2000年 想象画面，新加坡厄尔画廊
Binghui Huangfu
Bring Asia to Australia: Interview with Binghui Huangfu, Director of Asia Australian Arts Centre, SydneyLaura Ning Zheng
Binghui Huangfu, a trained artist, arrived in Australia in 1989, in the wake of the Tiananmen Square events. At the time she spoke very little English. Fifteen years later, she has become an internationally recognized curator and theorist in Asia Contemporary visual arts. Binghui has curated a number of major international exhibitions, accompanied by conferences and substantial catalogues canvassing themes underpinning the exhibitions. In addition Binghui has served on numerous boards including the Academic Board to the Asian Art Archive Hong Kong (2001-5), and as a judge for many major art prizes within the Asian region – such as the Philip Morris Art Award, Singapore, 2002. Binghui is now the director of the Sydney-based Asia Australian Arts Centre (Gallery 4A), one of the most vibrant and exciting contemporary art spaces and the only one in Australia fully committed to promoting cultural exchange between Australia and Asia.
Beijing-born Binghui Huangfu grew up during China’s Cultural Revolution and although her father was one of Chairman Mao’s guards, her childhood was marked by hardship and poor living conditions. Binghui's passionate goal was to become an artist, something which could have seemed an impossible dream in the conditions of that time - the beginning of the economic reforms of the early 1980s. This determined young girl finally began study in painting. Her tortuous path led her to work in journalism while simultaneously developing her artistic practice in China.
In 1989, with the help of a friend, Binghui was able to reach Australia and continue her studies, first in English, then in visual arts via a postgraduate degree in painting at the Sydney College of the Arts. She then enrolled in a Doctorate of Creative Art at Wollongong University and subsequently transferred to the University of New South Wales, College of Fine Arts, as a PhD student in the Department of Art History and Theory. To pay for her studies, she took all kinds of odd jobs - from baby sitting to cleaning - but she never felt this was a hard life, compared to what she had been through in Beijing, ‘I was driven by passion and I knew exactly where I wanted to go,’ she says.
While studying painting, she was able to show her collages, conceptual installations and paintings - her first inroads in the coveted art world. She later took the job of assistant curator at the Asia Department of the Art Gallery of New South Wales. Two years later she was recruited as lecturer by Lasalle-SIA College of the Arts, Singapore, soon becoming the College's Earl Lu Gallery director and curator.
She remained in Singapore from 1996 to 2003 and gained her international reputation in the field of contemporary Asian art. She organized numerous international art shows that traveled to different parts of the world, moving progressively from Chinese to Asian and later global art issues. Her first major exhibition n and Out was organized as one of the first art dialogues between Chinese artists from the mainland and from the Diaspora. She also set up Text & Subtext the first major survey exhibition of Asian women's contemporary art ever staged, featuring 22 artists. This exhibition traveled to seven countries in Europe, Asia and Australia. A later show, Site + Sight - Translating Cultures eaturing 32 artists, organized in seven different venues in Singapore, was a pioneer in exploring the impact of globalization on visual art and culture. Another successful show, Science Fictions, involved some 17 international artists visually debating post-colonial assertions.
In 2003, she and her Australian husband, arts administrator Rod Murray, decided to return to Sydney, for both personal and professional reasons. She had been invited to become the director of 4A Gallery and Rod the operating manager, as part of the recent transforming it from an artist-run space into a curated, non-profit art centre with a broader engagement with the visual culture of the region. Binghui Huangfu took it as ‘another challenge’ after her Singapore career: a tough new beginning with limited resources, a much smaller space of 200 square meters, and a need to create awareness in Asian contemporary creation among the Australian public in order to promote dialogue between the two cultures. She felt comfortable with these two cultures: as an Australian and at the same time without losing her Asian roots.
One year and a dozen highly visible curated shows later the 4A Gallery has become, in the words of Rod Murray, ‘the young, sexy Asian art space in Sydney’.
We want to tell Australians: there are a lot of exciting things happening in Asia, if you want to be part of it, come and get it. 4A has become one of voices of the different cultures that interact with Australian culture.
In a metropolis like Sydney, with its mixed population and culture, 4A tells its inhabitants who have already embraced different world cuisines that they can only benefit by doing the same with visual arts.
The most important of the initial shows proved to be Asian Traffic, in 2004, a parallel event of the Sydney Biennale, set in six phases and numerous performances from June to September, including some 30 young and powerful artists from all over Asia and Australia. Juxtaposed with the show, a two-day conference was held at UNSW College of Fine Arts with a series of round-table discussions and 20 artists’ talks. This successful conference engaged a wide range of Australian and visiting artists, academics, writers and curators. The show helped introduce in Australia the modernity and diversity of Asia’s contemporary creation, as well as the regional interaction at work as the title suggested. Asian Traffic later traveled to Adelaide, Singapore, and is currently touring China. In one exhibition review, Gary Carsley commented:
Huangfu’s Asian Traffic challenged by example the habitual dependence of Australian artists on models of authorship – scenarios for content and manuals of taste imported from the Caucasian tribal homelands of the northern hemisphere. So in the very first instance, Asian Traffic suggested an open, inclusive model based on dialogue, in contrast to the closed exclusivist model of monologue suggested by the recent Biennale of Sydney’s On Reason And Emotion.[1]
Open Letter, 4A’s current show, which will tour six ASEAN countries between 2005-2007, brings together Australian artists of south-east Asian descent, who address the impact of having become Australians through their art work which becomes many ‘open letters’ to the audience. A clear example of the intercultural dialogue Binghui Huangfu wishes to promote through the art space. Like all the shows she organizes, Open Letter was accompanied by symposiums which ignited intellectual discussion and draw public interest.
A consistent feature of Binghui’s curatorial research has been its focus on the cultural politics of Diaspora.
If I was to try and phrase an underlying curatorial philosophy it would probably be to pick a theme that seemed topical (particularly in relation to national policy) and have faith that the power of the artists that were invited to respond to that theme would cause discussion that would at least push the envelope of local discussion, if not puncture it not all together … I’m not saying that I set out to be a provocateur. At the same time, however, highlighting the contribution visual art can still make to public discourse in Asia is not to be ignored.
he explains her driving concept: ‘curating is telling a story, generating a debate’. For her, the theme related to an issue in the society, as well as the show’s name, are of great importance: they can produce public involvement and make a sophisticated issue more easily accessible. In a country where public interest in contemporary Asian arts remains narrow, her first priority remains to ‘make as many people as possible aware of the existence of a vital, exciting Asian contemporary arts practice’.
Faced with a limited space, Binghui Huangfu has developed an original solution, organize her shows in different phases, deconstructing the artist work to fit into space, but allowing it to be reintegrated into a much larger show that can travel to museums and galleries elsewhere in Australia and the rest of the world. This gives the artists more exposure. However she says she doesn’t consider the amount of space available as in anyway restricting what she wants to do: ‘it has been my experience that if you have a strong idea, you do not have to be confined to ‘thinking inside the white box’.
‘We focus on promoting young Asian-Australian artists by mixing them with internationally-recognized Asian artists. It gives them an opportunity operate at another level, to broaden their horizons giving access a wider audience’, the 4A director says. ‘Our goal is also to provide some of the other faces of the Australian story and dedicate in exploring contemporary Asian thinking, in the context of contemporary arts in this region.’
For Binghui Huangfu, increasing Australia’s cultural exchange with Asia is a natural thing due to geography and the growing creativity of Asian artists and Diasporas. ‘Both sides are winning in this dialogue,’ she says. She and her husband both believe Asian art is gradually winning importance compared to western art. With globalization, they add, the national borders have been blurred and art is increasingly individual rather than country-based, as well as losing the notion a ‘centre’. Today’s Asian artists can travel more easily than ever before, and access information from their home country, with therefore, less pressure to leave their homeland.
They understand the western art language, but at the same time bring their own input stemming from their life experience and cultural background. Western artists often produce art referencing art as a result of several generations of established contemporary art methodology: as in you need to follow those rules. In Asia’s modern history, there was no contemporary arts-making culture and related methodology. With the newly-gained visual language from the West and the rapidly changing political, economic and social Asian scene, everything is becoming possible and can be integrated, such as ancient philosophy, literature, sociology, rites and traditions : at a time when western artists doubt in the post-modernism era, their Asian counterparts bring fresh energy. For them, making art is a matter of life and death, an urge that comes from within their social context.
Despite this favorable environment and the successful results of their first moves, 4A faces one major challenge: money, even with small operational costs and tight control. This non-profit organization largely dependent on limited government subsidies and corporate sponsorship, is constantly under threat. Binhui Huangfu says, ‘With the big change brought about to the 4A space, everyone thinks we’re getting increased financial support. In fact, we’re holding our breath and struggling. We hope more sponsors will be interested in Asian contemporary creation as Australia is reaching out to Asia’.
She is quite outspoken about her criticism of this limited government support. While praising the slowly growing business support for her ambitious programs, she points out, in interviews with Australian media that a similar attitude cannot be generally found with people working in government funding organizations. ‘I have been told not to be too ambitious and just leave things as they are. I cannot think of another place in the world where ambitious ideas are so openly discouraged,’ she said. However Binghui Huangfu is prepared to work on her passion and overcome the current difficulties, and bring the 4A art space to a higher level. Fifteen years after her first steps in her adopted country, she still has the same enthusiasm and will not easily give up.
In particular, Binghui Huangfu has embarked in her most significant project so far. She has been invited to curate a comprehensive presentation of Chinese contemporary art which will be held in Australia in 2006. The show will include some 50 artists from mainland China and from all corners of the Chinese Diaspora in the world, representing three ‘generations’ in the evolution of China’s art scene since the 1980s.
This retrospective, one of the biggest ever held anywhere in the world, comes at a time when Chinese contemporary art has become a “hot commodity” in the world, with prices rising fast. The show will be a good opportunity from an academic point of view to ask how sustainable this movement is. And it will provide the Australian public an insight into China’s transformation in the past two decades.
Binghui Huangfu might not be a ‘celebrity’ recognized by glossy magazines, but her contribution to the development of Australia-Asian understanding has undoubtedly been meaningful and helped place Australia in a leading position in relation to Asian contemporary art. This way, she has already put her imprint on the world art map and will increasingly do so in the future.
Endnote:
[1] Gary Carsley, Asian Traffic, Broadsheet Volume 25, 2004
Bibliography:
•Carsley Gary, Asian Traffic, Broadsheet Volume 25, 2004
•Fenner Felicity, Shifting Gears: Asian Traffic’, Artlink, vol 24 #4, 2004
•Huangfu B.,(ed, co-authored) ‘Asian Traffic – Walk and Don’t Walk’ in Asian Traffic (exhibition catalogue), Asia Australia Art Centre-Gallery 4a, 2005
•Huangfu B., ‘Open Letter’ in Open Letter (exhibition catalogue essay), Asialink, 2005
•Huangfu B., ‘Trickle Up, Trickle Down: Asian Contemporary Art Networking, Platform and Connection’ in Susan Acret (ed) Contemporary Asian Art – Link, Platforms and Networks,Asian Art Archive/International Association of Art Critics, Hong Kong, 2004, pp 24 – 26
•Huangfu B., (ed, co-authored) ‘Moving On-Contemporary Chinese Art’ in Moving On (exhibition catalogue), NUS Museum, National University of Singapore, 2004, pp 12-37, pp 108-109, pp 151-163, pp 180-187
•Huangfu B., (ed co-authored) ‘Science Fictions’ in Science Fictions exhibition catalogue, Earl Lu Gallery, Singapore, 2004, pp 15-26
•Huangfu B., ‘Asia: The New View of International Curators – an Experience and Thought From a Asian Contemporary Art Curator’ (in Chinese) in Art Observation January issue (No.87), The Art Observation Magazine China, 2003, pp 113-115
•Huangfu B., (ed co-authored) ‘Next Move – Contemporary art from Thailand’ in Next Move (exhibition catalogue), Earl Lu Gallery, Singapore, 2003, pp 8-15
•Huangfu B., (ed co-authored) 'Single Screen Video Art From Asia' in Video Program 2003 (exhibition catalogue), Earl Lu Gallery, Singapore, 2003, pp 5-10
•Huangfu B., (ed co-authored) 'Site and Sight – Translating Cultures' in Site and Sight – Translating Cultures (exhibition catalogue), Earl Lu Gallery, Singapore, 2003, pp 11-21
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