Story highlights
- Swiss Collector Dr Uli Sigg built the world's largest collection of Chinese contemporary art
- Sigg said he decided to do "what a national institution ought to do but never did"
- Includes work by now famous artists including Ai Weiwei, Cao Fei and Zhang Xiaogang
- Sigg donated 1,510 works to M+, Hong Kong's new museum for visual culture
Former Swiss ambassador to China, Dr. Uli Sigg, is widely regarded as one of the most important and influential collectors of Chinese contemporary art. The opinions expressed here are solely his.
(CNN)It was business, not art, that first brought me to China.
As
an employee of the Swiss company Schindler Elevators I arrived in
Beijing in the late 70s, to establish what would later become the very
first joint venture between China and the outside world.
This was the beginning of Deng Xiaoping's open door policy, though the country itself was still very much socialist.
The
death of Mao had occurred only recently and there was a feeling of
turbulence and disorientation. Changes were happening everywhere, people
-- and artists in particular -- wanted to have their voices heard.
Early days of Chinese Contemporary Art
I
had always been very interested in contemporary art -- and it seemed
very natural for me at the time to begin exploring the art scene in
China. Unfortunately, what I saw back then did not excite me.
Chinese artists had only just begun to free themselves from the forced constraints of socialist realism.
Sigg has collected four decades of Chinese contemporary art.
They
had been cut off entirely from the global mainstream and the major art
movements of the 20th century. I was looking at the scene with a Western
eye, accustomed to the cutting most edge of contemporary art. The
Chinese, meanwhile, were playing catch-up.
Throughout
much of the late 1970s and early 1980s, Chinese art appeared -- on the
surface at least -- as quite derivative, a mere imitation of more
obvious Western styles.
I followed the
scene, treading carefully, so as not to put my company or the artists
themselves at risk, but did not begin seriously collecting until much
later, once Chinese artists had found their own language.
Art as rebellion
Over the years that language evolved and changed.
China's rock gods imagined as huge temples
In
the late 80s -- and particularly after Tiananmen -- contemporary art
took on an increasingly political edge. Artists made art against the
system, against a repressive system and political art dominated. This
was followed by a more Cynical Realism -- or pop art.
Today,
Chinese art production has caught up with global trends. Most artists
are able to travel and the scene no longer stands in isolation. Its
influences are global.
Having watched
Chinese art develop closely, I realized that not a single institution,
or any known individuals, had begun seriously collecting. Those that did
buy pieces did so randomly.
A systematic approach
So
I decided to do what a national institution ought to do but never did:
To collect Chinese contemporary art in a systematic way, from the late
1970s onwards, mirroring Chinese art production in its width and depth
from its very beginnings.
Chen Man: Is this China's Annie Leibovitz?
At
its height, my collection consisted of around 2,300 works -- ranging
from important revolutionary paintings to modern day abstracts.
I
must have met close to 2,000 artists over the years. I nearly always
purchased directly from the artists themselves, due -- at least
initially -- out of sheer necessity: there was no functioning galleries
or dealers as there are today.
In 1997,
art catalogs did not exist and exhibitions were still largely
underground events, so in order to get a better overview of the
country's art scene, I created the Chinese Contemporary Art Award
(CCAA), the first ever award of its type to be held in China.
Swiss art collector, Uli Sigg
This
also allowed me to promote Chinese art abroad, to the CCAA jury members
who were the gatekeepers of the big international venues. Later I added
an art critic award.
It represented
the largest and most comprehensive collection of Chinese contemporary
art in the world. In 2012, I donated 1,453 pieces and sold a further 47
pieces to M+ Museum in Hong Kong. This combined total of 1,500 works
positions M+ as the world's number one museum for Chinese contemporary
art.
While people may see me as a
collector who put together the most significant collection of Chinese
contemporary art in the world, I prefer to view myself a researcher of
China and of Chinese contemporary art who just happened to buy some of
the results of his research.
The M+ Sigg Collection: Four Decades of Chinese Contemporary Art exhibition is in Hong Kong from Feb 23 to April 5. Other works from the M+ Sigg collection are currently featured in Chinese Whispers, a joint exhibition in in Bern. "The Chinese lives of Uli Sigg" -- a film about Uli Sigg and his collection will release later in 2016