Celebrity Life

In Prestige Online’s Getting to Know series, we ask our favourite personalities what they’re like outside of work — and get a little more personal.

Even with a whole host of TV dramas, shows, films, Hong Kong's biggest beauty pageant title, and now her new beauty brand Snow Queen under her belt, Grace Chan is something of a sweetheart. Loved by thousands for her genuine and humble personality, the actress is well known for being honest about her personal life too. Thanks to her Instagram, her marriage to Hong Kong actor Kevin Cheng gave us major #CoupleGoals and images of her adorable son sparked broodiness across the nation. But what is Grace Chan like in real life? We took a moment to chat to her to find out.

What’s the first thing you do when you wake up?

The most boring thing you can think of: brushing my teeth and washing my face.

What’s a normal weekend like for you?

In the afternoon, I love going to the park with my husband and my son. At night, we usually do dinner at home with my parents and his mom.

 

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A post shared by ♥ (@ghlchan) on Mar 17, 2020 at 9:50pm PDT

What’s your favourite emoji?


Any colour heart.

What book are you reading right now and what’s on your list to read?


Lean In by Sheryl Sandberg
. I'm waiting for my order from Book Depository: This is Going to Hurt by Adam Kay.

What are you most likely to order for delivery?

Dinner... and books. For dinner, most likely Vietnamese. Banh mi on a hot day and pho on a cold day.

 

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A post shared by ♥ (@ghlchan) on Mar 14, 2020 at 9:08pm PDT

What do you like to do to relax?


Reading, binging on Netflix, or baking.

Tell us something that not too many people know about you.

The most hardcore addiction I ever had was watching WWE [World Wrestling Entertainment] in high school. I even went on a road trip from Vancouver to Portland, Oregon with a girlfriend to watch a pay-per-view. We had second-row seats.

What’s a guilty pleasure of yours?

Eating cake in bed at midnight.

 

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A post shared by ♥ (@ghlchan) on Apr 16, 2017 at 7:00pm PDT

Have you ever had a fan-girl moment? If so, who was it?

Meeting my favorite WWE wrestler Shawn Michaels (at aforementioned pay-per-view) after waiting an hour and a half in the rain. I couldn't speak... it’s something I regret to this day.

What’s the strangest or most horrible thing you’ve read about yourself on the internet?

That I’m not my parent’s biological daughter. Hurtful — a bit, but definitely strange for people who don’t know me to make up accusations like that.

 

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A post shared by ♥ (@ghlchan) on Mar 28, 2020 at 9:09pm PDT

Tell us what you have going on at the moment.


I recently launched my first personal care brand: Snow Queen! I'm really proud of this moment because we’ve been working on it for quite some time. We’ve only started with one product thus far — premium quality facial cotton pads — but we’re getting some positive reviews and hopefully this means we can keep expanding the brand further!

To date, what do you consider your greatest accomplishments?

Being married to the man of my dreams and having a wonderful family with him.

 

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A post shared by ♥ (@ghlchan) on May 25, 2019 at 3:24am PDT

The post Getting to Know Hong Kong Actress and TV Show Host Grace Chan appeared first on Prestige Online - Hong Kong.

The prolific art collector, advisor and soon-to-be mother of three, Shanyan Koder is sitting snuggled among silk cushions on an antique chaise longue in her living room. Hanging on the wall opposite is Eden – a Damien Hirst Butterfly piece – one of Koder’s personal favourites.
“Visually it’s an absolutely stunning painting, bursting with colour, iridescence. It’s symmetrical and cathedral-esque – and the only work in his entire Butterfly series that includes every single butterfly that’s ever featured in the series,” says the Hong Kong-born and -raised founder/director of Shanyan Koder Fine Arts and HUA arts platform.
An epic Candida Höfer photograph hovers just above the black grand piano, and a pair of Afro-Nude paintings by Chris Ofili adorn the wall above. The scene is set, and what a scene it is.
Dressed in a simple black dress and white robe, waiting for hair and make-up, and looking relaxed in her fairy-tale home, Koder is also gloriously, glowingly six months pregnant. Her third child is well on her way – another girl in addition to daughters Callie, aged six, and Lily, four.
Today, we’re in the safe confines of her spectacular Chelsea house, hands washed and sanitised as London starts to come to grips with the severity of the Covid-19 crisis that’s already swept its way through Asia. These strange and precarious times quickly bring the conversation to balance, well-being and family.
“What a year it’s been so far, 2020, with the Australian bushfires – my husband’s Australian, so it’s been very devastating to our family too – the floods in the UK, the locusts in Africa and now with this virus, and then the markets crashing. I feel it’s a message to mankind to reset and refocus on the most important things in life, which are health and happiness,” says Koder.
Those are also the core values of how she’d like to raise her children – prioritising health, happiness and home. Hectic London life for the Koders is often punctuated by time outs: “We go to the middle of nowhere, the Turks & Caicos, for two weeks just to recharge and reset.”

[caption id="attachment_200735" align="alignnone" width="1795"] Dress: Elie Saab | Necklace: Shanyan's own[/caption]

It’s soon off to a secluded house on a cliff overlooking the English coast – Cornwall to be exact – where the family will be getting away from the hustle, bustle and density of London during this time of crisis. “Hopefully some salty sea air and the windswept landscape will help us escape from all the chaos for a little while. There’s a time to be busy, I like to be industrious and engaged, but there’s also a time to rebalance and reconnect with nature, the ocean and the sea, and I’m quite spiritual about that.”
The art aficionado’s lifestyle is usually a mixture of worldly glamour and cosy, quiet family time. Her father, Hong Kong businessman Canning Fok, was already one of the city’s most prolific art collectors before Koder took a bigger role in shaping the family’s impressive collection, which includes Monet, Miró and Matisse along with Hirsts and Warhols. So it was her own family and upbringing that steered her “love for fine art and the way I collect today... I remember joining my parents from a very young age to bid at the likes of Sotheby’s and Christie’s’ evening sales.”

[caption id="attachment_200738" align="alignnone" width="2693"] Dress: Rochas | Earrings: Alighieri[/caption]

Since childhood, the thrill of acquiring rare pieces at exclusive viewings never left her. Today, the family collection runs the gamut of Modern masters, Impressionists and Post Impressionists – the likes of Degas, Magritte and Van Gogh, as well as contemporary luminaries such as Murakami and Hirst and a smattering of Chinese modern masters. Koder has carved out a stellar reputation as a serious art-world mover and shaker, serving as a council member of the Serpentine Galleries in London, an advisory-board member of the contemporary gallery Unit London and a member of the women-only Artemis Council at the New Museum of New York. The HUA art space (now online platform) she founded over a decade ago introduced the enigmatic Chinese contemporary market to the rest of the world.
As a collector, she has to respond emotionally to the actual artwork. “I like to collect with an open mind and not just stick with an artist that I know, because for me that’s quite closed-minded,” she says. “I’m a classicist at heart – I do love the old-worldly paintings, so I do tend to gravitate towards contemporary works that tend to have the elements of classicism and romanticism. But I like to embrace the new, I like to support emerging artists.”

Our eyes are drawn again to the Hirst, which carries a sense of the classical, and the butterflies a touch of romance. “As with all Damien’s works, there are classical elements of natural history, of science, of art and religious faith; but I love that while this work is a celebration of the beauty of life, it’s equally an appreciation of the beauty also in death.”

[caption id="attachment_200755" align="alignnone" width="1346"] Dress: Rochas | Earrings: Alighieri[/caption]

As much as she’s a natural classicist, there’s much about her entrepreneurial approach that’s progressive and digitally focused. Communications and even sales are easier in the digital and social-media age. “Along that vein, I’m also co-founding an app called Global Showcases, to be launched later this year, which targets an invitation-only group of discerning collectors looking to acquire and cross-collect the world’s most exclusive masterpieces.”

Her roles over the years on the boards of laudable global art institutions have lent her platforms gravitas and trust. And selling ultra-exclusive art pieces to a select, closed and elite group of collectors via her app platform is already starting to send ripples through the traditional-leaning fine-art markets. This digital development sits as the third business to HUA and her art-advisory platform Shanyan Koder Fine Art, which came about organically more than a decade ago when she was a younger collector and professional in the art world, having done time at Sotheby’s and Goldman Sachs in both London and Hong Kong.
“Now, many of my business projects have flourished as a result of millennial collectors empowered to make quick decisions on the back of social-media communication, and the ease of communicating visually via digital platforms,” she says. With Art Basel and other fairs being cancelled this year, that digital dimension is becoming ever more prevalent, as more galleries and artists rely on this mode of working. Art might be her business, but as a consummate creative, Koder’s expressions extend from fashion – I discovered quite the enviable shoe closet hidden near a bathroom – to furniture and interior design.
She prefers to dress in classic cuts and likes simplicity over fussy, complicated contemporary fashions. Even her style connects to some of her most beloved artists since childhood.
A penchant for pieces that highlight the grace of a woman’s neckline and her figure is “I suppose, a little like a Degas work on paper!” she says with a laugh, draping a graceful arm over the sofa.
“I like nothing more than to put on a simple black dress – and often have the same dress in white, in nude, and red. I love the fragility of thin shoulder straps, the femininity of a Bardot neckline, and the sensuality of a strapless bodice. Paired with nude stiletto Louboutin heels and diamonds, of course.”

[caption id="attachment_200759" align="alignnone" width="1496"] Jacket and top: Dries Van Noten | Necklace: Shanyan's own[/caption]

The charming Chelsea house, where we shoot this issue’s cover, is a good example of Koder’s aesthetic carrying from one mode to another. Bought in 2009, from a music-business impresario (“he was a manager for Dire Straits and Bryan Ferry”), the three-storey property was a wonderful space but total bachelor pad.
“I’d seen more than 50 places in this postcode alone. It’s funny how properties find you, and things just worked out with this one,” she says. “We’ve transformed the house over the years. My husband and I love going to art fairs and cross-collecting is a big thing for us – not only art, but we love design pieces like these vintage Tiffany lamps or these two 19th-century French antique country chairs that fit with the house so well... You’ll see elements of my taste in the sensual, feminine lamps, handmade by my dear friend, Sera Loftus.”
There’s art, books, family photos and curios – beautiful vintage and antique pieces abound. A gorgeous mirrored-glass statement coffee table by famed French modernist Serge Roche sits in one area, and in another, where we shoot one of her portraits, there’s a coffee table by the French artist Pierre Giraudon, its surface embedded beautifully with broken-up watch pieces and looking almost intergalactic from above.
Re-upholstered grand sofas, armchairs, chaise longues and beautiful regal curtains come in lush fabrics, silks and jacquards. Minimalist this home is not. Old-world charm oozes from each detail, but plants and contemporary pieces give the space a warmth, vibrancy and energy.

[caption id="attachment_200756" align="alignnone" width="2693"] Dress and necklace: Bottega Veneta[/caption]

“Everything I’ve collected and acquired for our home has a touch of romance, classicism, and femininity,” says Koder. “I see my Chelsea home as a quiet oasis, a peaceful sanctuary in a bustling London metropolis. It’s also a family home, cosy and warm.”
It’s a perfect place to come back to after an artist preview, charity event, meeting or a lunch with her girlfriends. Sometimes, she says with a smile, it’s also quite good for “doing a cover shoot for an internationally acclaimed magazine!”
This space is, of course, the primary home base for her regular routine – days start around 6am, when she gets the kids ready for school, packs meals and arranges lessons, as she doesn’t have a full-time nanny. When they’re at school, she gets several hours to pack in her meetings, emails and work. Most evenings she spends with her husband, Matthew Koder, and the kids, and cooks for the family. “My family are creatures of habit, so we like to stick to an overall daily routine, which helps ground all of us.”
She also admits to being a romantic, in life as well as in style: “I’m a bit with my head in the stars – it’s probably good that I have a husband who brings me down to earth every now and then. He’s my rock..."
“Art is just part of my everyday life, my kids are growing up in a family and an environment surrounded by art, music and nature, so hopefully these elements are already shaping a part of their soul and spirit.”
The family, which already includes two very old cats, Winston and Sherlock, as well as a fluffy dog called Scooby, is about to welcome another addition. Koder is thrilled about having a third daughter in the coming months: “We’re all very excited,” she says, laughing. “And my husband is well and truly outnumbered now!”

Photography Victor de Halleux 

Styling Hannah Beck

Hair and Make-up Reve Ryu using Laura Mercier Pure Canvas Hydrating Primer

Digi Op Will Churchill 

Photography Assistant Dasza Wasiak

The post Entrepreneur and Art Collector, Shanyan Koder on Health, Happiness and Home appeared first on Prestige Online - Hong Kong.

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If you're an avid coffee drinker in Hong Kong, then you'll likely have heard about Fineprint. Currently located in two locations in Central and Tai Hang, the specialty coffee shop and wine bar is a popular haunt for many to hang out leisurely. Unlike other large coffee shop chains in the city, Fineprint is reminiscent of the more friendly Australian style café and has been one of our favourite places to sit down for a smooth cup of coffee and slice of avocado toast since it opened in 2016. But how does one build up a café to pour such fine tasting coffee? We sat down with Founder and Managing Director, Scottie Callaghan (who also happens to be a winner of the Australian Barista Contest and world latte art champion) to find out more.

Name: Scottie Callaghan
Profession: Coffee roaster, barista, wine drinker and business owner
Industry: Food and beverage
Start up since: November 2016

 

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On occasion, we’re lucky enough to have co-owner, industry legend and all round good guy Scottie Callaghan on the tools. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ Scottie’s coffee career started almost 25 years ago where he worked as a barista in Hornsby in Sydney. In the early 2000s he worked at Toby’s Estate Coffee in Woolloomooloo which was at the forefront of specialty coffee in Australia. This was where he learned to roast coffee. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ Scottie’s industry accolades include winning the World Latte Art Championship in Switzerland in 2006 and the Australian Barista Championship in 2007. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ Apart from being a coffee shop and bar owner, coffee roaster, part time baker and occasional barista he also finds time to train and compete in ultra marathons and trail running events here in Hong Kong. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ You’ll find Scottie most days at one of our stores. As you can see by the pictures he loves the opportunity to get behind the bar. He also loves a chat so please say hi! #fineprinthk

A post shared by FINEPRINT (@fineprint.hk) on Aug 20, 2019 at 7:28pm PDT

Tell us about your business.
Fineprint is a bakery, coffee roaster and café, cocktail and wine bar.

What’s behind the name Fineprint?
Details matter to us, and the detail is in the ‘Fineprint’. Details that are often overlooked or cut out to cut costs matter to us. We believe that our customers appreciate the difference those details bring to the experience.

 

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Fineprint at home! Our online shop is up and running and we deliver to anywhere in Hong Kong. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ If you want to brew delicious Fineprint coffee at home head over to fineprint.hk and check out our range of single origin filter coffees and our house blend, Peel Street Espresso Blend. #fineprinthk ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ Image by @alstelltsichvor #homebarista #specialtycoffee #coffee #singleorigincoffee #fineprintcoffee #filtercoffee #espresso #hongkong #hkcoffee #hkcafe #flatwhite #cocktails #wine #bakery #peelstreet #taihang

A post shared by FINEPRINT (@fineprint.hk) on Oct 22, 2019 at 8:34pm PDT

Tell me about your best and worst day at work?
My worst day was probably our first day opening. I was the only person working in the café, and we had no staff at that time. The total sales for that day was HK$250 -- which was a bit worrying. Now, we have over 20 staff.

My best days are any day that I am on the tools behind the bar working with the team. When everything is running smoothly, there's good music playing, customers are in a good mood, there's a bit of banter going on, and service is smooth. When all the pieces fit into place it’s a great vibe.

What do you do when you’re not at work?
I hang with my wife and kids or go running in the mountains.

 

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Learning to surf together, was super fun, and great teachers at Kata Beach Phuket. #familytime #holidays

A post shared by Scottie Callaghan (@scottiecallaghan) on Sep 18, 2019 at 2:49am PDT

Looking back now, what would you have done differently?
I would have waited another 6 months or so before opening our second store. Our second store is great, and it's doing well now, but the first 6 months of that baby were very very hard work. If we had taken another 6 months to plan it all, it would have been easier.

What is a normal work day like for you?
Every day is different. Some days I catch the 3:40am ferry, and I'm in the shop at 4:30am setting up with the team. Some days I don’t start until midday because I need to work with the bar team. On Wednesdays, I go to the roastery to roast our coffee. Some days I work from home so that there are no distractions and I can work on the business or catch up on admin. Other days are meeting days. It is a real challenge trying to prioritise correctly.

 

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A Fineprint classic #fineprinthk . . . Photo by @siuandyfish #breakfast #brunch #avocadotoast #sourdough #fineprintsourdough #halfandhalf #bakery #hongkongbakery #coffee #coffeebar #specialtycoffee #flatwhite #latte #latteart #cappuccino #barista #baristaskills #freshfood #wine #winebar #hongkong #taihang #peelstreet

A post shared by FINEPRINT (@fineprint.hk) on May 15, 2019 at 2:41am PDT

What advice would you give to someone looking to start up?
Do it. Find the courage, spread your wings and fly. Don’t wait until you are too old and live with regret.

What would you be doing if you weren’t doing what you do now?
I would probably be working for a coffee roasting business in Australia.

As a child, what did you aspire to be?
A chef.

 

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5:10am this morning. Day 1 serving @fineprint.hk Sourdough. It’s tasting absolutely delicious. #fineprinthk #bakery #coffeebar #winebar #bakeryinhk #coffeeinhk #wineinhk

A post shared by FINEPRINT (@fineprint.hk) on Nov 27, 2018 at 4:16pm PST

What has been your biggest hurdle? 
Opening our first café on Peel Street in Central and building the business. I overcame it by working from 4:30am until 6:00pm, 6 days a week. I was serving our customers and putting my heart and soul into the atmosphere, music and customer connection, along with our coffee and dishes.

Why did you decide to start up in Hong Kong?
I believed that there was a gap in the market. Australian style cafés are becoming popular the world over and there wasn’t one in Hong Kong yet. So, I wanted to give it a go here.

If you were to invest in another start up, which would it be?
I would love to try a fast food style café in the heart of Kowloon side, right in the middle of Mong Kok or somewhere similar.

 

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Long Black. Simply delicious. #fineprinthk . . Image by @alstelltsichvor . #coffee #blackcoffee #longblack #fineprintcoffee #coffeebar #specialtycoffee #barista #baristalife #espresso #latteart #hkcafe #hongkongcoffee #peelstreet #taihang #hongkong #winebar #bakery

A post shared by FINEPRINT (@fineprint.hk) on Jul 2, 2019 at 7:37pm PDT

What are your goals for 2020? And in the near future?
Open more Fineprints.

How hands-on are you?
Very. I’m a serious foodie. I love our sourdough, our coffee, our food, cocktails and wine. I cannot learn how do be the best at all of them, but I want to get my hands into all of those things.

How do you define success? Do you consider yourself successful?
Success is having some of the things that money can buy, and all of the things that money cannot buy.

Am I successful? In terms of that definition I have a religion I love, a beautiful and amazing wife, three beautiful and awesome kids, a great team to work with, good friends, and I love Fineprint and what we have built so far.

Fineprint Locations:

G/F, 38 Peel St, SoHo, Central; +852 5503 6880

G/F, 1 Lily Street, Tai Hang; +852 5331 5205

[inline_related_article article_id="103144"]

The post Startup Life: Scottie Callaghan of Fineprint Explains Why Good Coffee is All in the Details appeared first on Prestige Online - Hong Kong.

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Not many 25-year-olds can open a museum and anticipate art’s global cognoscenti of dealers, collectors, gallerists, owners, digital platforms and venerable institutions to be watching every step of the way with breathless anticipation. So it is with one of China’s millennial calling-cards, the dynamic artrepreneur of style and the aesthetic, Michael Xufu Huang, and founder of Beijing’s X Museum, which opens next month.
Huang exhibits soft power on a prolific scale, and his creative ambition encapsulates both the country’s newly wealthy seeking a richer cultural life and those legions of newly influential digital hipsters whose minds are both more open and more international than their forebears, and more concerned with high class and good taste than just riches. Huang is digital marketing’s content It-boy nonpareil and he’s riding the now-and-future wave array of electronic excitation that World 2.0 has become. And a Great Wave it is.
Despite his being a mere spring chicken of a lad – and a mighty stylish one at that – this isn’t the first time Huang’s initiated such a venture. In 2014, he co-founded what’s become the much-lauded M Woods non-profit private museum in Beijing’s 798 art district with Wanwan Lei (former model for revered Chinese painter Liu Ye) and her husband Lin Han (a prolific collector) – the couple’s fame and network lends them glowing digital celebrification.

[caption id="attachment_194630" align="alignnone" width="1796"] Jacket Giorgio Armani | Top Michael's own[/caption]

The trio wanted to bring experimental and international art into China. Their collective mantra was squarely aimed at luring a younger generation of Chinese into museums so they might adopt art as a hobby and grow a lifestyle with it. And rapidly came the expectant eyes of global art’s jet-set. And yet, five years on, despite art’s percolation and greater popularisation in China, Huang is choosing to move on at what seems like the pinnacle of success. Why?
“There’s a few reasons,” he says between changes of costume during our shoot. “First, I think I’m quite disappointed with the Chinese museum scene, in terms of everyone doing Western-themed artists.” Huang doesn’t deny that such exhibitions are publicly important for art education and has actively promoted them in the past (Andy Warhol, for example) with M Woods, he just can’t reconcile how that leverages 2020 China’s influence in the global art world.

“Form the New Norm,” goes his X Museum mantra, and like millions of his millennial peers and looming Gen-Zers, he’s in a rush to expedite this century’s geo-cultural shift via scroll, in the blink of an eye and the
“Like” of a social-media post. “I just want to show that we’re not like a typical museum. Yes, we’re starting with a collection, but the whole idea is to cultivate new talent.” Huang explains that currently there’s no such mechanism in China to help nurture young artists in such a way. Thus, he plans “to help them build their career and gain them more international attention”. He pauses. “I think that’s something I cannot resist – to show people how curious we are and why it’s important that we’re here.”
Huang has been continually travelling, (he was in Bangladesh prior our meeting in Hong Kong and flying to London the following day) and claims never to have much time to read long-form art-world articles. “I never have any time. I’m a workaholic,” he says. Little wonder given his remit. For X, he’s overseeing programming, development, promotion and more. “It’s like my baby,” he jokes. “I do everything for it.”
X Museum is a two-storey building in the city’s Chaoyang District orchestrated by Beijing-based Korean architect and designer Howard Jiho Kim, who oversees the studio TEMP. Huang’s opening exhibition How Do We Begin? , which forms the first part in a triennial, consists of 33 artists who espouse the millennial zeitgeist, and is curated by London Royal College of Art graduate Poppy Dongxu Wu (@poppydxwu). “This is her first exhibition in China,” says Huang, almost matter-of-factly, “and she’s doing a really good job. She’s from an architecture background too which is good for our multidisciplinary viewpoint.”
As counterbalance, Huang has assembled a glittering jury who will award a cash prize, consisting of Hans Ulrich Obrist (Serpentine Galleries, who says that Huang’s “immense curiosity” never ceases to amaze him), Kate Fowle (director of MoMA PS1), Zhang Zikang (Central Academy of Fine Arts, Beijing), and Diana Campbell Betancourt (Samdani Art Foundation). Looking ahead he also foresees digital projects. “I’d like to do curatorial projects online because the physical space can only allow you to do so much – like one or two shows at a time. There are also so many good curators I want to work with in China.”

[caption id="attachment_194631" align="alignnone" width="1789"] Outfit Hermès[/caption]

While Huang grew up and schooled in London and went to the Tate Modern every weekend to learn more about getting into the profession, his art epiphany came in the less likely art milieu of one of the Tate’s satellites. Holidaying – in fact he says he was camping – with friends in the seaside village of St Ives, southwest England in 2012, Huang discovered the Tate St Ives showing American artist Alex Katz’s seascapes and beach scenes and went to take a look. “What got me hooked is when I went to Tate St Ives, and Alex Katz, everything clicked in my heart. This was like a revelation, and you feel it’s a part of your life. It made me extremely happy and meaningful.”
It’s curious that Huang succumbed to the leisure and recreation of Katz’s work, the American’s high-intensity art paintings being defined as they are by an economy of line and indulgence of style, along with their cool but seductive emotional detachment. That could be a description of Huang. Influenced as much by style, fashion and music as by art history, yet still classical at heart despite the “now-y” vibe. Katz’s sassy show, appropriately enough, was called Give Me Tomorrow.
Poet, writer and University of Pennsylvania professor Kenneth Goldsmith taught the undergraduate Huang, who sat in on a grad seminar he was teaching in the art department, which Goldsmith describes as a “free-form discussion group about issues of the day”, and Huang also took a class Goldsmith taught about fashion theory and creative writing. The Ivy League professor recalls Huang’s unusual “X” factor. “He was perhaps the most unique student I’ve had in the 15 years of teaching,” he recalls. “He would saunter into class wearing furs and designer sunglasses, hanging on every word I said, taking in every bit of information about art, literature and music I had to offer. He was very quiet but very engaged. He cast a spell on myself and all of the other students, who at first were a bit perplexed but in time came around to adore him.”
How does the X man see himself? “A paradox,” he says, managing to reference an “X”. Personality-wise, I’m quite aloof in some ways. I like to have a lot of ‘me time’ when I can. I don’t like to socialise or be too public. But nowadays if you want to do anything you have to be present, so it’s like a paradox. You want to be real, but there’s that sense that your platform or social media is just curated or performed. It’s not the real you. And then you have to say what’s politically correct; there’s what you believe in, or what you have to believe in.”

[caption id="attachment_194635" align="alignnone" width="1783"] Outfit Dior Homme[/caption]

In retrospect, Huang, despite his “cool for Katz” epiphany in St Ives, England, thought the London galleries too inaccessible and “too posh” in their ways at the time he was growing up. “London galleries are more distant if you’re young. It’s easier to access art spaces in New York, and that brought me into the community, and I became more involved. It created a sense of belonging and that definitely helped.”
Goldsmith recalls a conversation he had about what Huang might do after graduating. “I do remember one time talking to him when he was considering going into tech after school. I told him that although he’d undoubtedly make a lot of money, the art world would be a lesser place should he not pursue it. We’re all glad to he took my advice!”
Despite the classicism, Huang, like many who’ve grown up in his generation, follows what’s called “Post-Internet” Art. “I’m very interested in Post-Internet Art. And I want such artists to come to China – there’s such a lot of material people can use in China, and post-internet art in a China context.” How does he define such Post-Internet Art? “It’s art dealing with tech, digital, industrial materials; for our generation it’s something we grew up with.”
How does he assess the legacy of contemporary Chinese artist Cao Fei, whose first major solo exhibition Blueprints is showing at London’s Serpentine Galleries until May 17. “For me, she’s not really my generation, but she has set a tone for Chinese art. She’s probably the first who represented China globally and challenged everyone’s perception. I think the new generation in China are now very international.”
Which in Huang’s generation means a huge number of people that have studied abroad and have a global vision. And even those who didn’t. “Everyone is pretty educated now, the education system is good, English is very good, everyone is curious. Like film, and music, or even #Metoo,
people see that and its global effect. And with that, Chinese institutions can have influence globally now.”

[caption id="attachment_194637" align="alignnone" width="1787"] Outfit Brunello Cucinelli[/caption]

So far Huang’s X Museum is generating all the right noises. “I think we’re already generating a lot of fuss, and on digital and social media, people are excited about it, people are talking. It’s also word of mouth; we bring out the community of real talent and of course they have their own communities. I think it’s just a matter of time. We also have fashion people, brands I want to collaborate with, and sponsors.”
“You know our slogan is ‘form the new norm’, and I think we’re doing that and I always see the art world as a challenge, I don’t follow all the institutions, I do what I think I should do, and what I think is correct. You must believe what you believe in and there are so many paradoxes along the way. We want a new generation of art lovers and supporters and people who influence society. So I’m very grateful they are on this journey with me, and to have this power in China. After all, why do expensive shows that don’t give us any benefit. I don’t believe in that.”
What will be his own definition of success? “When I can retire without worry,” he says. “When the programme and the institutions are good enough and the team is running itself. That’s my dream of success.” And then he gets objective about his situation. “But, if there’s another young person, then I too would question how legit they are, how serious, as anything new takes time to get used to. At least people are used to me already and aren’t surprised when I call up with something like this. And the result has been phenomenal”
I ask if there’s anything he hasn’t shared he’d like to convey before he saunters off to ride and drive the wave of his ambition. “It’s mainly about taking our power back and the new generation doing something interesting with our own content. I think that’s the key.”
And President Xi? “We would really like him to come, and I hope that when we do well he would want to come.” From X to X, the geo-cultural future starts here.

Photography Ricky Lo 

Art Direction Sepfry Ng 

Styling Zaneta Cheng 

Hair and Makeup Kidd Sun 

Photography Assistants Jason Li and Kelvin Sim

The post The Artrepreneur, Michael Xufu Huang appeared first on Prestige Online - Hong Kong.

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