The talk has two parts. Dr Claire Roberts will first chart a precious friendship between Fou Lei and Huang Binhong, and Liu Ding will join her in a conversation about the relationship between artists and critics. The revered traditional Chinese painter Huang Binhong and the cosmopolitan critic Fou Lei both believed that they are on the wrong side of cultural politics, but their creative practices played a very important and unique role in the evolution of Chinese culture in the twentieth century. They struggled with the fast-changing world of twentieth-century China, but never gave up on exploring the common ground within and between Chinese and Western cultures, literature and arts, and the past and present. Their name ‘Hong’ and ‘Lei’ mean ‘rainbow’ and thunder’ in Chinese. Their words and images are also like claps and rainbows, products of a stormy time that presented extraordinary challenges for advocates of modernity and tradition alike. Through subtle treatment of relevant topics, Roberts will reveal truths not only in art and literature but also in understanding the wider search for a political and cultural identity in China.

In the following conversation, Claire Roberts and Liu Ding will review today’s issues via historical experience, investigating and reflecting on the relationship between artists and critics in the contemporary art world.

Dr Claire Roberts is a historian of Chinese art and a curator. She is Associate Professor, Art History and ARC Future Fellow in the School of Culture and Communication at the University of Melbourne. She has published widely on Chinese art and visual and material culture, and curated numerous exhibitions.

Liu Ding is a Beijing-based artist and curator. His artistic and curatorial practices focus on connecting the historical and the contemporary from a perspective embedded in the history of thoughts, and through descriptions and gazes of multiple layers. He has participated in international biennials such as 2015 Istanbul Biennial, 2015 Asia Pacific Triennial, 2014 Shanghai Biennial, 2014 Prospect 3 New Orleans, 2012 Taipei Biennial, Chinese Pavilion of 2009 Venice Biennial, 2008 Media City Seoul, and 2005 Guangzhou Triennial.