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SHELL ISSUE - n° 18 - 2019 - € 10

The Art of Sailing

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QUART ERLY - P.I. 31/03 /2019 Intern ationa l € 10, Spedizione in Abbon Chf 10,50 , UK £ 7,50- Poste Italian amento Postale e S.p.a. - 70% - LO/MI

[ ART ON BOARD ]

@SOTHEBY’S 2018

A DIALOGUE BETWEEN EAST AND WEST

The M+ Museum is set to open in 2020. Located in Hong Kong, it will be one of the largest museums of visual culture in the world. Its core collection is 1,500 works by Uli Sigg, the globally-renowned collector of Chinese art by Micaela Zucconi

ong Kong is preparing for the 2020 opening of one of the largest museums of

Nowadays the younger generations seem more

visual culture in the world, a showcase for the art, architecture and design of the

ready to dedicate themselves to minimalism

20th and 21st centuries. The M+ Museum in the new West Kowloon cultural district,

and abstract art, as a consequence, perhaps,

beside the Art Park, will be an Eastern MoMA. Designed by Swiss architects Herzog &

of censorship in critical art like the work of

de Meuron, the museum launches with a core collection of 1,500 works donated in 2012

Ai Weiwei. In 1999, The Venice Biennale

by Uli Sigg, the most important collector of Chinese art in the world. An entrepreneur

introduced twenty Chinese artists to an

in China since the 1970s and Swiss ambassador to China from 1995 to 1998, Uli Sigg

international audience, attracting the interest

started to buy Chinese art even before a market for it existed. “I began my collection as

of collectors. The island of San Giorgio, also

if it were an institution, forgetting my personal tastes in the knowledge that some day I

in Venice, was the location for a memorable

would restore the collection to its native country”, the entrepreneur said during a meeting

solo show by Qin Feng, a representative of

held some months ago in Milan during the exhibition entitled “The Szechwan Tale. China,

the avant garde in China and a master of

Theatre and History”, curated by Marco Scotini at the FM Centre for Contemporary Art.

traditional ink works that tend towards the

The event also brought together other experts in the sector in a series of encounters,

abstract. A perfect interaction of Oriental

including art historian Lu Peng, author of the monumental work “A History of Art in

and Western. Another milestone in Chinese

20th Century China” (Charta 2010). The Sigg collection, now on show at Vienna’s Mak

contemporary art was the exhibition “Art

Museum until 26 May, is crucial to an understanding of how Chinese art developed from

and China after 1989: Theater of the World”

the 1970s to the early 21st century. As elsewhere, it isn’t possible to identify a clear trend.

at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in

The vast panorama ranges from traditional concepts neglected during the Maoist period

New York (October 2017 - January 2018).

to Western influences assimilated in a variety of ways. In the opinion of Lu Peng, 1989

The highlighted period extended up to 2008,

– the year of Tiananmen Square and the fall of the Berlin Wall – was a watershed date.

the year the Beijing Olympics marked China’s

Above, He Wei, Green Alcohol, 2017, oil and ink on canvas, 240x180 cm. Sigg Collection. The photo-realist painting by the artist, born in 1987, is a mix of abstract, Western icons and chromatic inserts. The artist lives, studies and works in China and Italy. Opposite, Zao WouKi (1920-2013), June-October 1985 (oil on canvas, 280x1000 cm), commissioned by the architect I. M. Pei for the Raffles City Complex in Singapore. The work, in extra-large format, belongs to the artist’s so-called Infinite Period, which marked the peak of his career

GALLERIA MASSIMO DE CARLO AND XU QU

[ ART ON BOARD ]

Above, the collector Uli Sigg, left, next to a work by Ai Wewei Uli Sigg (Newspaper reader), 2004, mixed media, 168x58x72 cm. Left, Xu Qu, Dust (detail), 2017-2018, on show in the Chaos exhibition at the Galleria Massimo de Carlo in Milan

arrival as a new economic superpower. Chinese artists blossomed between 1990 and 2000, reflecting the global contemporary art phenomenon. The first specialist galleries appeared in the 1990s. Massimo de Carlo has been promoting Italian and international artists for thirty years and is casting a fascinated eye on the East – in fact, in 2016 he opened a gallery in Hong Kong, joining those in Milan and London. One of the most recent exhibitions was by the young artist Xu Qu. According to Uli Sigg, after a period of impressive growth the Chinese art market is beginning to slow, because Chinese collectors have started to buy Western art. Sotheby’s, though, set a record in 2018 when a work by Zao Wou-Ki (born in Beijing but Parisian by adoption, he died in 2013) was sold for 65,245,829 dollars. To remain abreast of developments, those interested should follow not only the auction houses but also Art Basel Hong Kong and the many biennials now held in outlying locations like Anren, near Chengdu, as well as Shangai, Beijing and Shenzen.

To side and below, Qin Feng, detail of a work and a view of the exhibition on the Island of San Giorgio in Venice, 2016. Bottom, left, He Xiagyu, Tank (the tank project), 2011-2013, leather, 890x450500x100-150 cm; Sigg Collection. Right, ShiGuowei, Kyoto, 2017, hand-coloured

photo, 148.4x139.2 cm. Sigg Collection