Swiss collector Uli Sigg has played in the time of economic opening of China by Mao an essential role, which is still continuing. To better understand China, in 1980 as an entrepreneur and business expert to the country called Sigg art turns to and wears for years the most important collection of contemporary Chinese art together. THE CHINESE LIVES OF ULI SIGG granted for the first time a comprehensive insight into the exciting and extraordinary life of the entrepreneur, diplomat and art collector. Contemporary artists like Ai Weiwei, Zeng Fanzhi, Cao Fei, Fang Lijun Wang Guangyi or consider him a friend and mentor to whom they could entrust their works, to protect them against the arbitrary destruction of the authorities. The majority of them are over the Sigg museum M + in Hong Kong, which expected to open in 2019 and the works will be presented to the general public.

The Chinese Lives of Uli Sigg

Ai Weiwei, famous for his large-scale installation work and his dogged social justice advocacy, created a career-defining work in 2015 with @Large, mounted at Alcatraz, the emblematic site associated with egregious incarceration conditions and radical Native American protest. At the core of @Large were portraits of prisoners of conscience coupled with the opportunity to write letters of solidarity to the imprisoned. In her impassioned and powerful film, exhibition curator Cheryl Haines visits several current and former prisoners, including American whistleblower Chelsea Manning, and learns how these letters were vital to their survival.  “The misconception of totalitarianism is that freedom can be imprisoned. This is not the case. When you constrain freedom, freedom will take flight and land on a windowsill.”  — Ai Weiwei