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closed In front of the collector. Uli Sigg's collection of Chinese contemporary art Facing the Collector. The Sigg Collection of Contemporary Art from China

Curated by: Marcella Beccaria

The show

The Castello di Rivoli Museum of Contemporary Art presents for the first time in Italy the exhibition In front of the collector. Uli Sigg's collection of Chinese contemporary art, a prestigious collection by Uli Sigg (Lucerne, 1946), recognized as the most important in the world.

First entrepreneur to go to China in 1979 for Schindler following the declaration of the Open Door Policy, Uli Sigg has woven economic relations and drafted the model for businesses adopted by China, opening the door to investments and essentially inventing the Chinese model of state capitalism. Author of the first joint-venture between China and the West, over the years spent in the Asian country Sigg has intertwined relationships and friendships with numerous artists, identifying art as an extraordinary tool for getting to know Chinese culture in depth. In a context devoid of cultural institutions dedicated to contemporary art, Sigg has made collecting an opportunity for personal study.

By regularly attending private galleries and artists' studios, Sigg encouraged the creative paths of contemporary China, directly acquiring multiple works of art.

The collection, which includes about 2,500 works by over 500 artists, is not limited to the aesthetic taste of the collector alone but reflects an encyclopedic vision that aims to document the evolution of Chinese art from the late seventies to today.

After his initial period as an entrepreneur in China from 1979 to 1995, Sigg returned to China as the Swiss Ambassador for China, North Korea and Mongolia from 1995 to 1998, a period in which he also had a fundamental role as a cultural ambassador, promoting knowledge of Chinese art in the international arena. In 1997 he established the Chinese Contemporary Art Award (CCAA), an annual award for Chinese contemporary artists who live in China and who, through the involvement of international directors and curators in the jury, contributed to the subsequent dissemination of Chinese art in many museums. in the world. Thanks to the contacts favored by Sigg, Harald Szeemann, who was among the jurors of the first edition, then invited nineteen Chinese artists to the Venice Biennale in 1999, first exhibiting their works in Europe.

In 2012, Sigg, with a donation of 1,450 works from her collection to the M + Museum for Visual Arts in Hong Kong, which will be partially open to the public in December 2020, returned an important part of its recent cultural history to China.

The exhibition, which welcomes visitors with works set up in the atrium of the Castle, along the staircase and in the rooms on the second floor, is developed in close contact with the collector and the artists and presents a precise selection of the Sigg and M + Collection. Sigg Collection, documenting some of its distinctive features through a choice of thematic and monographic rooms. The first room is a sort of “archive” in which some of the first works purchased and usually installed at his home in Switzerland and some of the numerous portraits that the artists have dedicated to him are set up. As evidence of Sigg's close friendships, the center of the room is occupied by the monumental Fragments (2005) by Ai Weiwei, one of the closest artists to him and present in the collection with numerous works, while the important work by Feng Meng Bo testifies to the contribution of Sigg as the client of new works.

Sigg's attention to the profound social and political transformations that China has undergone in recent decades can be seen in several works on display, including those by Peng Yu & Sun Yuan, Liu Ding and Mao Tongqiang. The interest in the rich cultural tradition and the comparison between the idea of the West and that of the East can be found in the rooms respectively dedicated to Shao Fan and Liu Wei. A recurring theme in the history of Chinese art, the landscape unites several works in the collection, from the patterns that outline the new digital horizons of aaajiao, coming to include deep spiritual notes as in the case of the monochrome works, at the limit of the visible, by Qiu Shihua.

The exhibition also documents Sigg's constant attention to younger generations and her openness to multiple artistic techniques. The new works by Miao Ying and He Xiangyu, specially commissioned by the collector for the spaces of the Castle, return new and daring visions of today's China. “Thanks to my journey through art - says Sigg - I think I can say that I have seen more China than many Chinese. I collect, but more than a collector I prefer to define myself as a researcher ”.

Timetable and tickets

Address

Piazzale Mafalda di Savoia, 2
10098 Rivoli

Contacts

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