Will the art that collector Uli Sigg donated to Hong Kong museum M+ finally be judged on its merits?
- When Uli Sigg donated the bulk of his Chinese contemporary art collection to Hong Kong’s M+ museum, he had no idea of the controversy it would cause
Art collector Uli Sigg, a keen hunter in his youth, feels he is the one trapped these days, by the ping-pong dialectics of global politics. Targeted by pro-Beijing nationalists in Hong Kong for a collection that some perceive as “anti-China”, the Swiss businessman says the two Koreas are upset with him, too.
Last month, an exhibition, “Border Crossings: North and South Korean Art from the Sigg Collection”, opened near his home in Bern, Switzerland. South Korean lawmakers have been critical of their government for sponsoring an exhibition they perceive to contain North Korean “propaganda”. The North Koreans object to a painting titled Two Great White Sharks (2014), by Chinese artist Feng Mengbo, depicting dictator Kim Jong-un peering into a shark tank.
There has even been an investigation into whether the 75-year-old ex-diplomat – he was the Swiss ambassador in Beijing from 1995 to 1998, a role that covered not just China, but also North Korea and Mongolia – breached United Nations sanctions by purchasing North Korean art (he was cleared). Neither of the Koreas’ embassies in Bern accepted an invitation to the opening.
Now Sigg is in Hong Kong for the last stage of gifting his contemporary Chinese art collection to the city, a drawn-out and controversial saga that has taken nearly a decade.
Back in 2012, he donated 1,464 works then valued at HK$1.3 billion and sold an additional 47 pieces to the future M+ museum for HK$177 million. The museum’s founding director, Lars Nittve, called the group of works by 350 artists a “national collection of global significance”. A mainland Chinese author of a book on Hong Kong art history disagreed, saying M+ was reflecting a “postcolonial culture in the city that fawns over anything Western and is obsequious to foreigners”.
The much-delayed M+ building, designed by Swiss firm Herzog & de Meuron, is finally nearing completion, and most of Sigg’s Chinese collection has arrived from storage in Switzerland. Some pieces have been taken out of their crates and hung for a special Art Basel exhibition for VIP guests this week before the museum’s official opening this winter.
