Sunset Cocktail Reception. From left: Lin Lee, Rudy Tseng, Liu Kuo-sung, and Angelle Siyang-Le, Director of Art Basel Hong Kong.
Overturn the Centre
Overturn the Centre is a record of interviews conducted over several months in Taiwan in 2021, in which Liu Kuo-sung and Rudy Tseng discussed Chinese painting and its relation to global modernism, and Taiwan’s critical role in reconciling the two. The book combines art theory with informal observations on Liu’s art, teaching and global travel, and offers a unique insight into his thought and experience.
Book launch organized by The Ink Society, and presented by the Liu Kuo-sung Foundation, Hong Kong Club, 23 March 2026
The speakers were David Pong Chun-Yee, Chairman of The Ink Society in Hong Kong; Gregor Muir, Director of Collection, Tate; Hera Chan, Adjunct Curator, Asia-Pacific, Tate; Alvin Li, Curator, International Art, Tate; Rudy Tseng, independent curator and collector; and Lin Lee of the Liu Kuo-sung Foundation. The discussion centered on the modernization of Chinese ink painting and Liu Kuo-sung’s critical role as painter, teacher and polemicist, and the growing global interest in ink art, as evidenced by Ink, the Tate Modern exhibition opening in April 2027.
Liu Kuo-sung traveled from Taiwan to attend the event before an invited audience, with Lin Lee, his daughter and CEO of the Liu Kuo-sung Foundation, and Rudy Tseng, the instigator of the project. Among the guests were Hung Hsien of the Fifth Moon Group, B Li, son of Chu-tsing Li, museum curators from the Tate, Centre Pompidou, The Met and National Gallery Singapore, members of the Tate Asia Pacific Acquisition Committee, painters and international ink art collectors.
Sunset Cocktail Reception organized by Art Basel Hong Kong and Rudy Tseng of Art Basel’s Global Patrons Council, who invited the Liu Kuo-sung Foundation to celebrate the book launch, Convention and Exhibition Center, 27 March 2026
At this invitation event overlooking the harbor, Rudy Tseng spoke on Liu Kuo-sung’s work and importance, touching on his ‘Overturn the center tip, overturn the brush,’ and Lin Lee outlined the process of making the book: Rudy Tseng’s initiation of the project, video recording of the Mandarin interviews at the time of the Covid-19 epidemic, transcription and editing of the Chinese, translation into English with further editing, and design and layout. In attendance were Liu Kuo-sung, museum directors and curators from the National Gallery Singapore, the Mori Museum (Tokyo), M+ (Hong Kong), the Hong Kong Museum of Art and The Met, and ink art devotees from around the world.
Publication
The book will be available globally from July 2026.
Overturn the Centre: On the Modernisation of Chinese Painting
Rudy Tseng, Liu Kuo-sung
Published by Hatje Cantz Verlag in 2026
Paperback with flaps
ISBN 978-3-7757-6271-7
17 ✕ 24 cm, 328 pages