Uli Sigg | |
|---|---|
 Uli Sigg in 2010. | |
| Born | 1946 |
| Nationality | Swiss |
| Alma mater | University of Zurich |
| Occupation(s) | Businessman, diplomat, art collector |
| Spouse | Rita Sigg |
Uli Sigg (born 1946) is a Swiss businessman, diplomat and art collector. He served as the Swiss Ambassador to China, North Korea and Mongolia from 1995 to 1998. He serves as the vice chairman of Ringier, the largest media company in Switzerland. He made a large donation of contemporary Chinese art to the Hong Kong–based M+ museum in 2012.
Uli Sigg was born in 1946. [1] [2] He received a PhD in Law from the University of Zurich. [1]
Sigg started his career as a business journalist. [3] By 1977, he worked for the Schindler Group, where he was an expatriate in China. [4] [5] He left the company in 1990. [1] He was a company director for the next five years, serving on the boards of Swiss corporations. [1]
Sigg served as the Swiss Ambassador to China, North Korea and Mongolia from 1995 to 1998. [1] [2] [4] [6]
As of 2009, he served as the vice chairman of Ringier, a media company. [1] He also served on the advisory board of the China Development Bank. [1]
Sigg became the largest private collector of contemporary Chinese art in the world. [5] His collection included "2,000 works by more than 350 Chinese artists". [3] Meanwhile, in 1997, he started the annual Chinese Contemporary Art Awards. [1]
In 2012, he donated 1,463 works by 350 Chinese artists from his collection to the M+, a new museum in Hong Kong, [3] scheduled to open in 2019. [7] The donation includes 26 works by Ai Weiwei and other works by "Ding Yi, Fang Lijun, Geng Jianyi, Gu Wenda, Huang Yongping, Liu Wei, Xu Bing and Zhang Xiaogang". [4] The combined works are worth an estimated US$163 million. [4]
Sigg kept 300 works in his personal collection. [4] Parts of the art collection can be found at Sigg's Mauensee Castle, which lies on its own island in Lake Mauensee. [8]
He serves on the International Council of the Museum of Modern Art in New York City and the International Advisory Council of the Tate in London, United Kingdom. [1]
As the Swiss Ambassador to North Korea, Sigg used his official contacts to gain access to the two North Korean art cooperatives, Mansudae Art Studio and Mount Paektu. He is the only foreign art collector permitted to purchase works by North Korean artists portraying the country’s leaders, Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il. The North Korea government even wanted him to build a contemporary art museum in North Korea, although he declined. [9]
Sigg is married. [10]
Xia Xiaowan is a painter.
Art Basel is a for-profit, privately owned and managed, international art fair staged annually in Basel (Switzerland), Miami Beach (USA), Hong Kong (China) and Paris (France). Art Basel provides a platform for galleries to show and sell their work to buyers, and works in collaboration with host cities' local institutions to help grow and develop art programs.
Michael Schindhelm is a German-born Swiss author, filmmaker and curator.
Liu Ye is a Beijing-based contemporary Chinese painter known for his bright-hued paintings of childlike female figures, his favorite cartoon character Miffy the bunny and works inspired by Piet Mondrian. Liu Ye is part of a generation of artists who grew up during the Cultural Revolution. However, unlike most acclaimed Chinese contemporary art, his works have little political implications. Instead, he prefers to use a universal language to depict his inner world. His work has been exhibited extensively in China, Europe and the United States.
Qiu Shihua is a Chinese landscape painter. He lives and works in Beijing and Shenzhen.
Jean-Marc Decrop is a specialist of Chinese contemporary art. He is one among the art collectors who have contributed to the discovery, the recognition and the influence of Chinese contemporary art abroad.
Hu Xiaoyuan is a contemporary Chinese artist. Hu's work has been exhibited internationally and her practice includes installation, video, sculpture and painting. Hu currently lives in Beijing, China.
Yang Yongliang is a Chinese contemporary artist.
DE SARTHE is a contemporary art gallery with spaces in Hong Kong and Scottsdale, Arizona. The gallery's contemporary art program exhibits and promotes emerging artists from Asia, and its advisory focuses on 19th and 20th century master paintings and sculptures.
M+ is an art museum located in the West Kowloon Cultural District of Hong Kong. It exhibits twentieth and twenty-first century art encompassing visual art, design and architecture, and moving image. It opened on 12 November 2021.
Chow Chun Fai is a Hong Kong contemporary artist specialized in visual art. He is a chairman of Fotanian Artist Village in Fo Tan, in Hong Kong and one of the few artists who are actively engaged in politics. In 2012, he ran unsuccessfully for a cultural post in the Hong Kong legislative council election in the Sports, Performing Arts, Culture and Publication constituency.
Morgan Wong wing fat is a Hong Kong-based artist. He was based in Beijing and London and currently lives and works in Hong Kong.
Adrian Cheng Chi-kong is a Hong Kong entrepreneur and business executive. He is the CEO and executive vice-chairman of the Hong Kong-listed New World Development, the heir and executive director of jewelry company Chow Tai Fook, and the owner of Rosewood Hong Kong Hotel. He is also the founder of K11, which has a portfolio of commercial, cultural and residential projects. He is the son of property developer Henry Cheng and grandson of Cheng Yu-tung.
Chen Ke is a Chinese artist. She currently lives and works in Beijing. Having participated in numerous international and domestic exhibitions, Chen Ke has worked in a variety of media, including painting, sculpture and fashion design. Chen Ke is recognized as the most representative artist of the New Generation of Cartoon of China.
Tsang Kin-Wah is a visual artist based in Hong Kong. His earlier work, particularly his "wallpaper art", was known for its combination of beautiful illustration and painting, and for its use of profane or obscene words. More recently, he has explored topics related to politics and religion via large-form, multi-media installations that combine music, video and light projections.
The Chinese Lives of Uli Sigg is a documentary by the filmmaker Michael Schindhelm, released in 2016. At its opening in 2019, the M+ museum for visual culture in Hong Kong will present 1500 art works by contemporary Chinese Artist to the public. The collection is credited the most important of its kind worldwide. The documentary The Chinese Lives of Uli Sigg portrays Uli Sigg's involvement in one of the first economic projects that introduced China's opening toward the West and his following support of the Chinese art scene. His work as an art collector recently led to the donation of his collection to the M+ museum.
Zhang Wei is a Chinese painter and an important figure in the development of abstract art in postmodern China. Widely considered one of the founding members of the self-organized group of young painters known as the No Name Group, he continues to create abstract art today.
Suhanya Raffel is an art historian who has been serving as the museum director of the M+ Museum for Visual Culture in Hong Kong. She joined the West Kowloon Cultural District Authority in November 2016 as executive director, M+, before being appointed Museum Director, M+, in January 2019. She succeeded Lars Nittve, who led the museum from 2011-2016.
Ding Yi is a Chinese contemporary artist currently based in Shanghai. He is a pivotal figure in the development of geometric abstraction in China, and is currently a professor at the Shanghai Institute of Visual Arts.
Lui Shou-Kwan was a Chinese painter, one of the most prominent ink painters of the 20th century and a founder of the Hong Kong New Ink Movement.
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Other | |
