Natalie King

Now in her third decade of the profession, Melbourne-born and based Natalie King has been the curatorial force behind more than a few groundbreaking, scholarly exhibitions. These stretch from a 1989 group show at Melbourne’s Studio 14 with Lauren Berkowitz, Stephen Bram, Deborah Ostrow and Kathy Temin to more recent projects such as Destiny Deacon: Walk & don’t look blak at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney in 2004 and Up Close: Carol Jerrems at the Heide Museum of Modern Art in 2010.

King’s appointment as director of Utopia@Asialink in 2009 marked a kind of career change after years of working as an independent curator and writer. Utopia sees King at her collaborative best, working with a range of distinguished artists, arts professionals and academics from around the Asia Pacific, in line with the project’s tagline as a roving, multilateral platform for regional engagement. Effectively a cross-regional biennial, Utopia inserts Melbourne into a network of Asian cities including Tokyo, Seoul, Singapore and New Delhi.

While she maintains an independent practice, the networks and nous it has afforded her have certainly served the Utopia project well, as evidenced by the current Utopia-dedicated issue of Broadsheet magazine; and this on the back of an edition of Artlink, themed around art and surveillance, which she guest-edited with Virginia Fraser. “Whether working as an independent curator or within an institution,” King maintains, “I apply the same methodologies of collaboration and inclusivity. My preference is to co-curate or co-edit as it is these joint endeavours that are most rewarding.”

Late last year Utopia presented Intimate Publics at Fehily Contemporary as part of the 2011 Melbourne Festival. The exhibition featured video projections by Asia Pacific artists including local Daniel Crooks and Larissa Hjorth alongside artists such as Nikhil Chopra from India, Masaru Iwai from Japan and Minouk Lim from Korea. It was accompanied by a free public forum with heavyweight speakers such as Tokyo Wonder Site director Yusaku Imamura and Tan Boon Hui, director of the Singapore Art Museum.

Photo: Richard Kendall

Utopia’s international focus gives the project an appealing sense of spontaneity and surprise, as though it could take place anywhere, anytime. In January 2012, Utopia@Asialink finds itself at the 4th India Art Fair. This follows on from King’s participation (as part of an Asialink delegation) in a roundtable discussion held last year at India’s premier national arts centre, the Lalit Kala Academi. Utopia is presenting work from its past projects as part of a video lounge program at the fair, including a moving image work from Shadow Life, a 2012 Asialink touring exhibition curated by King and Djon Mundine.

Maurice O’Riordan