Michael Xufu Huang (; born 1994) is a Chinese

art collector A private collection is a privately owned collection of works (usually artworks) or valuable items. In a museum or art gallery context, the term signifies that a certain work is not owned by that institution, but is on loan from an individual ...

and

socialite A socialite is a person, typically a woman from a wealthy or aristocratic background, who is prominent in high society. A socialite generally spends a significant amount of time attending various fashionable social gatherings, instead of having ...

. Huang co-founded the M Woods Museum of Beijing's

798 Art Zone 798 Art Zone (), or Dashanzi Art District, is a complex of 50-year-old decommissioned People's Liberation Army, military factory buildings boasting a unique architectural style that houses a thriving artistic community in Dashanzi, Chaoyang Di ...

in 2015 and the

X Museum X, or x, is the twenty-fourth letter of the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''ex'' (pronounced ), plural ''exes''."X", '' ...

in the Chaoyang district of Beijing in 2020. His art collecting activities have led ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

'' to profile him in 2017 as "something of a next-generation

Jeffrey Deitch Jeffrey Deitch (pronounced ''DIE-tch'';Mike Boehm (January 12, 2010)''Los Angeles Times''. born July 9, 1952) is an American art dealer and curator. He is best known for his gallery Deitch Projects (1996–2010) and curating groundbreaking exhib ...

of China."

Early life and education

Huang was born in

Chongqing ChongqingPostal Romanization, Previously romanized as Chungking ();. is a direct-administered municipality in Southwestern China. Chongqing is one of the four direct-administered municipalities under the State Council of the People's Republi ...

, China in 1994, and grew up in Beijing. His mother works in the

pharmaceutical industry The pharmaceutical industry is a medical industry that discovers, develops, produces, and markets pharmaceutical goods such as medications and medical devices. Medications are then administered to (or self-administered by) patients for curing ...

and his father is a finance lawyer. As a teenager, Huang became interested in art while attending boarding school in the United Kingdom. He recalled an exhibition on the beach paintings of

Alex Katz Alex Katz (born July 24, 1927) is an American figurative artist known for his paintings, sculptures, and printmaking, prints. Since 1951, Katz's work has been the subject of more than 200 solo exhibitions and nearly 500 group exhibitions through ...

Tate St Ives Tate St Ives is an art gallery in St Ives, Cornwall, St Ives, Cornwall, England, exhibiting work by modern British artists with links to the St Ives area. The Tate also took over management of another museum in the town, the Barbara Hepworth Mu ...

, where he "really felt connected with the work" and "grew ispassion for art." After finishing his education at

Dulwich College Dulwich College is a 2-18 private, day and boarding school for boys in Dulwich, London, England. As a public school, it began as the College of God's Gift, founded in 1619 by Elizabethan actor Edward Alleyn, with the original purpose of ...

and completing his

A Levels The A-level (Advanced Level) is a subject-based qualification conferred as part of the General Certificate of Education, as well as a school leaving qualification offered by the educational bodies in the United Kingdom and the educational a ...

art history Art history is the study of Work of art, artistic works made throughout human history. Among other topics, it studies art’s formal qualities, its impact on societies and cultures, and how artistic styles have changed throughout history. Tradit ...

, Huang moved to the United States to study at the

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (Penn or UPenn) is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. One of nine colonial colleges, it was chartered in 1755 through the efforts of f ...

. In university, Huang studied art history and marketing and was active in the

Zeta Psi Zeta Psi () is an international collegiate fraternity. It was founded in 1847 at New York University. The fraternity has over 100 chapters, with roughly 50,000 members. Zeta Psi was a founding member of the North American Interfraternity Confer ...

fraternity. He graduated in 2017.

Career

Huang developed his interests in art at the age of 16. His parents gifted him his first work of art, a lithograph by

Helen Frankenthaler Helen Frankenthaler (December 12, 1928 – December 27, 2011) was an American abstract expressionist painter. She was a major contributor to the history of postwar American painting. Having exhibited her work for over six decades (early 1950s u ...

, for his sixteenth birthday in 2010. He started slowly collecting in 2013, after moving to Philadelphia to attend university.

M Woods Museum

While a

sophomore In the United States, a sophomore ( or ) is a person in the second year at an educational institution; usually at a secondary school or at the college and university level, but also in other forms of Post-secondary school, post-secondary educatio ...

at the University of Pennsylvania in 2015, Huang joined the contemporary art museum M Woods as a co-founder alongside art collectors Lin Han and Wanwan Lei. Located in Beijing's

, the museum focuses on "internet-minded" works of artists such as

He Xiangyu He Xiangyu ( zh, c=何翔宇; born 1986) is a Chinese contemporary artist based in Berlin and Beijing. Background He Xiangyu graduated from the Oil Painting Department of Shenyang Normal University in 2008 with a bachelor's degree. His work h ...

and

Olafur Eliasson Olafur Eliasson (; born 5 February 1967) is an Icelandic–Danish artist known for sculptured and large-scaled installation art employing elemental materials such as light, water, and air temperature to enhance the viewer's experience. In 1995, ...

. Its debut exhibition on

Andy Warhol Andy Warhol (;''Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary''"Warhol" born Andrew Warhola Jr.; August 6, 1928 – February 22, 1987) was an American visual artist, film director and producer. A leading figure in the pop art movement, Warhol ...

in 2016 received international recognition. Later that year, Huang joined the board of the

New Museum The New Museum of Contemporary Art is a museum at 235 Bowery, on the Lower East Side of Manhattan in New York City. It was founded in 1977 by Marcia Tucker. History The museum originally opened in a space in the Graduate Center of the then-nam ...

in New York City as its youngest member. In the summer of 2017, Huang curated his first major exhibition, ''Heart of the Tin Man'', a survey of artists influenced by

post-Internet Post-Internet is a 21st-century art movement involving works that are derived from the Internet or its effects on aesthetics, culture and society. Definition Post-Internet is a loosely-defined term that was coined by artist/curator Marisa Olson ...

culture. Huang announced his resignation and the withdrawal of his collection from the museum in 2019.

X Museum

In 2020, Huang co-founded the

, focused on

Chinese contemporary art Chinese art is visual art that originated in or is practiced in China, Greater China or by Chinese artists. Art created by overseas Chinese, Chinese residing outside of China can also be considered a part of Chinese art when it is based on o ...

, with businesswoman Theresa Tse. It is located in the Chaoyang district of Beijing. The museum aims to provide an art platform for millennial artists and present contemporary art works that are heavily influenced by

globalisation Globalization is the process of increasing interdependence and integration among the economies, markets, societies, and cultures of different countries worldwide. This is made possible by the reduction of barriers to international trade, th ...

Other activities

In 2020, Huang was reported to be a stakeholder in Mine Project, a commercial gallery that opened in Hong Kong a year earlier. He organised its inaugural exhibition, ''Cutthroat Kitchen'', on the works of Chinese artist Zhang Zipiao. In 2022,

Bloomberg News Bloomberg News (originally Bloomberg Business News) is an international news agency headquartered in New York City and a division of Bloomberg L.P. Content produced by Bloomberg News is disseminated through Bloomberg Terminals, Bloomberg T ...

reported that Huang had filed a lawsuit against art collector Federico Castro Debernardi. The lawsuit alleged that Debernardi had violated the terms of a sales agreement involving a

Cecily Brown Cecily Brown (born 1969) is a British painter. Her style displays the influence of a variety of contemporary painters, from Willem de Kooning, Francis BaconScott, Sue (2013). "Cecily Brown" in ''The Reckoning: Women Artists of the New Millennium ...

painting that Huang had previously bought from the

Paula Cooper Gallery The Paula Cooper Gallery is an art gallery in New York City, founded in 1968 by . History Predecessors Cooper ran her own space, the Paula Johnson Gallery, from 1964 to 1966, where Walter De Maria launched his first solo show in New York. She w ...

and resold to Debernardi for an added commission. A settlement between Huang and the gallery was reportedly reached just before the Bloomberg report.

Personal life

Huang was one of the influential figures defrauded by

Anna Sorokin Anna Sorokin (, ; born January 23, 1991), also known as Anna Delvey, is a con artist and fraudster who posed as a wealthy heiress to access upper-class New York social and art scenes from 2013 to 2017. Born in the Soviet Union (now Russia), ...

after the two met in New York City. Sorokin claimed to be a wealthy German heiress under the fictitious identity of Anna Delvey. Huang later purchased a portrait of Sorokin in court, drawn by Chinese artist Gong Jian, for the X Museum's collection, stating "I paid more for this work than the hotel charges I apparently lost." He is depicted in the 2022

Netflix Netflix is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming service. The service primarily distributes original and acquired films and television shows from various genres, and it is available internationally in multiple lang ...

miniseries ''

Inventing Anna ''Inventing Anna'' is an American drama television miniseries created by Shonda Rhimes, inspired by the story of Anna Sorokin and the article in ''New York'' titled "How Anna Delvey Tricked New York's Party People" by Jessica Pressler. It was ...

'', based on Sorokin's life.

Recognition

In 2016, ''

Apollo Apollo is one of the Twelve Olympians, Olympian deities in Ancient Greek religion, ancient Greek and Ancient Roman religion, Roman religion and Greek mythology, Greek and Roman mythology. Apollo has been recognized as a god of archery, mu ...

'' magazine highlighted Huang in its "40 Under 40 Asia Pacific" list. In 2017, he was named to ''

Forbes ''Forbes'' () is an American business magazine founded by B. C. Forbes in 1917. It has been owned by the Hong Kong–based investment group Integrated Whale Media Investments since 2014. Its chairman and editor-in-chief is Steve Forbes. The co ...

30 Under 30 ''Forbes'' 30 Under 30 is a set of lists published annually by ''Forbes'' magazine since 2011 consisting of 30 notable people under 30 years old in various industries. The American list consists of 600 people, with 30 selected in each of 20 sect ...

list under its "Art & Style" category.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Huang, Michael Xufu Living people Chinese curators Chinese art curators Chinese art collectors Chinese socialites Patrons of the arts University of Pennsylvania alumni People educated at Dulwich College 1994 births