Thomas Berghuis

Thomas Berghuis is a writer, curator and the former director of the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Nusantara (MACAN) in Indonesia. He holds an MA in Sinology from Leiden University, and a PhD in contemporary Chinese art from the University of Sydney. Between 2017 and 2019, Berghuis was a board member of the Framer Framed Foundation, and was a member of the Supervisory Board in the period 2019-2022. Thomas Berghuis is currently based in the Netherlands.

He has worked as a curator Chinese Art at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York, and a former Consultant Lecturer at the Sotheby’s Institute of Arts in Singapore. Also an educator, Berguis was a lecturer in Asian Art at the Department of Art History & Film Studies at the University of Sydney and was also appointed Deputy Director of the Australian Centre for Asian & Archeology at the University of Sydney in 2009.

Berghuis was one of the founding Associate Curators for Edge of Elsewhere, a three-year exhibition project with the Sydney festival focusing on community engagement and art across the Asia-Pacific, held at Gallery 4A in Chinatown and Campbelltown Art Centre in Western Sydney, where he has been on the Advisory Committee since 2008. He was Associate Curator for the 6th Sharjah International Biennale, U.A.E (2003), Curator for the 1st Dashanzi International Arts Festival at the 798 Factory in Beijing (2004), and Associate Curator for the 3 Israel Video Art Biennial in Tel Aviv (2006). Additionally, Berghuis participated in the symposiums In the Future Everything Remains Uncertain on art collection policy in the Netherlands in 2017, presented by Framer Framed, as well as Suspended Histories on the colonial past of the Museum Van Loon in 2012.

Berghuis’ writings have been published in various magazines and art publications, including in Art Review UK, Art Asia Pacific, Artlink, Australian Newspaper, Broadsheet, C-Arts, Mesh, positions and RealTime. His first book, Performance Art in China, has been published in 2006 with Timezone 8, Hong Kong, and Berghuis is currently co-editor for a book with the artist collective Ruangrupa in Jakarta, Indonesia, titled Siasat: Expanding the Space and the Public, featuring 38 essays by artists, curators and writers from across Asia, Australia, and the Middle East.

Video below: Contemporary Art and the Global Turn in China at the Guggenheim, April 6, 2015.