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Uli Sigg | Chinese Contemporary Art as a Mirror of China’s Transformation: Through Images, 1970s - Present
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Wed, Nov 18, 2026
4:30 PM – 6 PM EST (GMT-5)
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The Grand Hall, Princeton University Art Museum
Princeton, NJ 08544, United States
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Drawing on images of works from the Sigg and M+ Sigg Collections, Uli Sigg will present a visual history of Chinese contemporary art from its beginnings in the 1970s to the present. The lecture will trace key moments and movements, from Socialist Realism and the independent experiments of the No Name Group and Stars Art Group, through the ’85 Art Movement and the emergence of performance and video art, to Cynical Realism and the artistic responses to globalization and consumer culture. It will continue through the years surrounding the Beijing Olympics and global financial crisis and into more recent developments in digital media and contemporary artistic practice.
Where
The Grand Hall, Princeton University Art Museum
Princeton, NJ 08544, United States
Speakers
Uli Sigg
Visiting Professor at the University of Zurich
Uli Sigg in his career traversed very diverse fields: from journalism to industry to diplomacy to venture capital-investing to art. Of his extensive interactions in more than forty-five years with the PR China, two are of historic significance: to establish 1980 the first industrial joint venture between the PRC and the outside world which marks the beginning of the PRC‘s epochal globalization process; and to form the singular collection of Chinese contemporary art that can represent the story line from its beginnings in the 70ies to the present - and then repatriating 1500 works back to China, to the M+ Museum in Hongkong.
Uli Sigg did a PhD in Law, then as a journalist wrote for various Swiss newspapers. In 1980, working for an industrial enterprise he established the first Joint Venture between China and the outside world, serving as its Vice-Chairman till 1991. In 1995, the Swiss government appointed him Ambassador to China, North Korea and Mongolia. Upon his return to Switzerland, he again assumed the chairmanship or board membership in several multinational companies. He served as Member of the Advisory Board of China Development Bank from 2003-2021. As an art collector, Uli Sigg formed the most significant collection of contemporary Chinese art in the world with more than 2’500 works. In 2012, he donated 1450 of these works to M+ Museum for Visual Arts in Hong Kong. He also established 1997 the Chinese Contemporary Art Award (CCAA) for Chinese contemporary artists living in Greater China, 2019 transformed into the SIGG PRIZE operated by M+Museum, and the CCAA Art Critic Award. He currently teaches as Visiting Professor at the Chair of Asian Art History of Zurich University. He is a member of the M+ Museum Board, the International Council of New York Modern Art Museum MOMA, the International Advisory Council of Tate Gallery, London and the Board of Kunsthaus Zurich.
Sponsors
Hosted By
Co-hosted with: Princeton Institute for International & Regional Studies, Center on Contemporary China (OWNER)