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 Ringier AG is a media group in Switzerland, founded in 1833 in Zofingen and based in Zürich. The current strategy is based not only on media but also on e-commerce and entertainment. It has a yearly income of approximately 1000 million CHF and ...

, the largest media company in Switzerland. He made a large donation of contemporary Chinese art to the

Hong Kong Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China ( abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delt ...

-based M+ museum in 2012.

Early life

Uli Sigg was born in 1946. He received a PhD in Law from the

University of Zurich The University of Zürich (UZH, german: Universität Zürich) is a public research university located in the city of Zürich, Switzerland. It is the largest university in Switzerland, with its 28,000 enrolled students. It was founded in 1833 f ...

Career

Sigg started his career as a business journalist. By 1977, he worked for the

Schindler Group , logo = Logo-schindler.png , logo_size = 200px , image = SchindlerTestTowerHeadOfficeEbikon.jpg , image_size = 250px , image_caption = Schindler Test Tower at the Head Office in Ebikon, Switzerland , type = Public (''Aktiengesellschaft'') , ...

, where he was an expatriate in China. He left the company in 1990. He was a company director for the next five years, serving on the boards of Swiss corporations. Sigg served as the Swiss Ambassador to China, North Korea and Mongolia from 1995 to 1998. As of 2009, he served as the vice chairman of

, a media company. He also served on the advisory board of the

China Development Bank The China Development Bank (CDB) () is a development bank in the People's Republic of China (PRC), led by a cabinet minister at the Governor level, under the direct jurisdiction of the State Council. As one of three policy banks in China, it ...

Art collection

Sigg became the largest private collector of contemporary Chinese art in the world. His collection included "2,000 works by more than 350 Chinese artists". Meanwhile, in 1997, he started the annual Chinese Contemporary Art Awards. In 2012, he donated 1,463 works by 350 Chinese artists from his collection to the M+, a new museum in

, scheduled to open in 2019. The donation includes 26 works by

Ai Weiwei Ai Weiwei (, ; born 28 August 1957) is a Chinese contemporary artist, documentarian, and activist. Ai grew up in the far northwest of China, where he lived under harsh conditions due to his father's exile. As an activist, he has been openly c ...

and other works by " Ding Yi,

Fang Lijun Fang Lijun (; born 1963) is a Chinese artist based in Beijing. He was born into a wealthy family with a high social status. In the 1990s, there was a cultural movementLü, Peng. "21-New Art and Artists." A History of Art in 20th-Century China. Mil ...

, Geng Jianyi,

Gu Wenda Gu Wenda () (born 1955, Shanghai) is a contemporary artist from China who lives and works in New York City. Much of his works are themed around traditional Chinese calligraphy and Chinese poetry, poetry. His works also often use human hair. Gu l ...

, Huang Yongping, Liu Wei,

Xu Bing Xu Bing (; born 1955) is a Chinese artist who served as vice-president of the Central Academy of Fine Arts. He is known for his printmaking skills and installation art, as well as his creative artistic use of language, words, and text and how t ...

and

Zhang Xiaogang Zhang Xiaogang (; born in 1958) is a contemporary Chinese symbolist and surrealist painter. Paintings in his ''Bloodline'' series are predominantly monochromatic, stylized portraits of Chinese people, usually with large, dark-pupiled eyes, po ...

". The combined works are worth an estimated US$163 million. Sigg kept 300 works in his personal collection. Parts of the art collection can be found at Sigg's Mauensee Castle, which lies on its own island in Lake Mauensee.

Bilanz ''Bilanz'' is a German language biweekly business magazine published in Zurich, Switzerland. In 2014, the magazine started its edition published in Germany. History and profile ''Bilanz'' was established in 1977 as a successor of ''Wirtschaft ...

: ''Die Reichsten und ihre Schlösser: Burgherren.'' 4. Dezember 2009. He serves on the International Council of the

Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, and is often identified as one of ...

in New York City and the International Advisory Council of the

Tate Tate is an institution that houses, in a network of four art galleries, the United Kingdom's national collection of British art, and international modern and contemporary art. It is not a government institution, but its main sponsor is the U ...

in London, United Kingdom. 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 The Mansudae Art Studio is an art studio in Pyeongcheon District, Pyongyang, North Korea. It was founded in 1959, and it is one of the largest centers of art production in the world, at an area of over 120,000 square meters. The studio employs ar ...

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 Kim Jong-il (; ; ; born Yuri Irsenovich Kim;, 16 February 1941 – 17 December 2011) was a North Korean politician who was the second supreme leader of North Korea from 1994 to 2011. He led North Korea from the 1994 death of his father Kim ...

. The North Korea government even wanted him to build a contemporary art museum in North Korea, although he declined.

Personal life

Sigg has a wife, Rita.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sigg, Uli Living people 1940s births University of Zurich alumni Swiss businesspeople Swiss corporate directors Ambassadors of Switzerland to China Swiss art collectors Collectors of Asian art