The Seventh Liu Kang Annual Lecture | “Bali and Beyond" by Gretchen Liu

The Seventh Liu Kang Annual Lecture | “Bali and Beyond: Tracing the role of photography in Liu Kang’s artistic practice” by Gretchen Liu
Sat 10 May | 2pm | National Gallery Singapore, City Hall Wing, Level B1, The Ngee Ann Kongsi Auditorium | Free, registration required: https://bit.ly/LKAL2025

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With the large number of photographs taken by Liu Kang (b. 1911, China; d. 2004, Singapore) during the 1952 sketching trip to Bali as a focal point, the seventh edition of the Liu Kang Annual Lecture explores the place of photography in the artist’s artistic process. As a writer with an interest in visual culture and heritage, Gretchen Liu will examine the intersections between photography, sketching, and painting – highlighting how photography provided a means of documentation and source of compositional inspiration for the artist both before and beyond the 1952 trip.

The lecture will be complemented by a discussion moderated by National Gallery Singapore curator Teo Hui Min, that will offer new research into what drew Liu Kang to Indonesia, and the impact of the experience on Liu Kang’s artistic practice.

An autography session for Gretchen Liu's new book, "Bali 1952: Through the Lens of Liu Kang", will follow the lecture.

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About the Liu Kang Annual Lecture

The Liu Kang Annual Lecture is a signature Gallery programme that is planned in partnership with the Liu Kang family. Each year, the lecture presents new research that spotlights a pivotal period of Singapore’s art history, shedding light on cultural forces and critical moments that have shaped our art.

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About the Speakers

Gretchen Liu is a writer and independent scholar with an interest in visual culture and heritage. A former journalist and book editor, she commissioned one of the first books on Singapore’s visual heritage, "A Vision of the Past: A History of Early Photography in Singapore and Malaya: The photographs of G R Lambert & Co, 1880–1910" by John Falconer (1987). She has written "Pastel Portraits: Singapore’s Architectural Heritage" (1984); "In Granite and Chunam: The National Monuments of Singapore" (1996); "From the Family Album: Photographs from the Lee Brothers Studio Singapore 1910–1925" (1995) and "Singapore: A Pictorial History 1819–2000" (1999). She was involved in the restoration of Raffles Hotel in the early 1990s as the in-house historian and penned several books on its history. Most recently she has been researching the life and times of her father-in-law the artist Liu Kang.

Teo Hui Min is Curator at National Gallery Singapore, where she contributes to the curation of "Singapore Stories" and "Beyond Declarations and Dreams", long-term exhibitions of Singapore and Southeast Asian art from the 19th century to the present. Other exhibitions she has co-curated include "Tropical: Stories from Southeast Asia and Latin America" (2023), "Mohammad Din Mohammad: The Mistaken Ancestor" (2021), "Georgette Chen: At Home in the World" (2020) and "Lim Cheng Hoe: Painting Singapore" (2018). Hui Min holds an MA in Art History from University College London and a BA in Social Anthropology from the London School of Economics.

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