BERN, SWITZERLAND.- Kunstmuseum Bern presents New Chinese Art, on view through October 16, 2005. Since China’s post-Mao reform program began in 1979, the country has witnessed the emergence of an extremely diverse and dynamic art scene, in spite of the continuing difficulties still involved in independent art production. This has attracted considerable interest in the west in recent years.

Chinese artists have entered the international art world with ease, adeptly making use of various media, techniques and forms of expression developed in the west, from the traditional genres of oil painting and sculpture to installation, photography, performance, body art and video. At the same time, the specifically Chinese roots – pre-modern tradition on the one hand and the socialist realism prescribed by the CP until the late 1970s on the other hand – are tangible in many of their works. One typical trait, for instance, in comparison to western art, is the emphasis on figurative painting. Some artists consciously address their national identity by adopting the techniques and/or formal syntax of traditional Chinese art (ink drawings, calligraphy, porcelain etc.) and placing them in a new context. Another important theme involves parodying or reflecting on western art and its art historical canon from a Chinese point of view. Above all, however, Chinese avant-garde art is to be considered in the light of the enormous social and economic change the country has undergone in the past few decades; in particular, many works clearly reflect the tension between the socialist ideals that are still officially operative and the consumerism unleashed by capitalist reforms.

Uli Sigg and his collection - Swiss collector Uli Sigg, deputy chairman of the Ringier media group, has first-hand knowledge of Chinese culture through his close links with China since the late 1970s. In 1980, he established the first joint venture company between China and the West. From1995–98 he was Swiss ambassador to China. Today, Uli Sigg is still actively involved in a number of areas in China, and visits the country six or eight times a year on average.

Uli Sigg has been following the evolution of contemporary Chinese art from its beginnings in 1979 and, together with his wife Rita, has been the first to collect Chinese contemporary art in a systematic way since the 1990s. His collection includes “historic” avant-garde works since 1979 and extends to today. The result is a collection of contemporary Chinese art of a scope and quality unparalleled anywhere, comprising 1200 works of around 180 artists. The major trends are represented by key works, many of which are already iconic in the Chinese art world.

Uli Sigg also has a number of outstanding Socialist Realist paintings and has compiled the world’s largest collection of Mao propaganda posters and paper cuts from the era of the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976). Although this imagery was largely removed from circulation in the “cleaning out“ phase of the post-Mao era and has been all but forgotten, it had a formative influence on most of today’s generation of artists, and is therefore of fundamental importance in understanding their aesthetic aproach and visual strategies.

Above and beyond his activities as a collector, Uli Sigg also plays an important role in Chinese art as a mediator, supporter and patron of artists for whom the interest of western buyers is a crucial factor, given that the Chinese art market is still developing. In 1998, he founded the first Chinese Contemporary Art Awards, which are presented every two years by an international jury comprising Harald Szeemann, Alanna Heiss, Hou Hanru and Ai Weiwei, co-curator of this exhibition and prominent Chinese artist. Curator Harald Szeemann, whose inclusion of several Chinese artists in the Venice Biennale in 1999 and 2001 also made a major contribution towards popularising the Chinese avant-garde in the West, relied heavily on Uli Sigg’s knowledge of the Chinese art scene and loans from his collection. In these respects, the reception of Chinese contemporary art in the West has been influenced significantly by the collector Uli Sigg.

The exhibition - The representative cross-section of works to be shown at Kunstmuseum Bern and Holderbank (exhibition hall of Holcim AG near Zurich) will be the first time that the Sigg Collection has been presented to the public on this scale. Art-lovers in Bern, already familiar with some aspects of Chinese contemporary art thanks to several exhibitions held at the Kunsthalle Bern in recent years, will be offered a broader survey of a quarter of a century of Chinese avant-garde art (1979–2004) in a show of work that surpasses previous exhibitions in both scope and quality. The exhibition will be structured into clearly legible themes, starting with a selection of Mao propaganda art intended to shed light on the roots of Chinese contemporary art that started in the late 1970s. A diachronous viewpoint will also be provided by a section dedicated to key works of the 1980s, now iconic, that were shown in the ground-breaking exhibition “China/Avant-Garde” at Beijing National Gallery in February 1989, shortly before the Tiananmen Square incident.
To ensure that the exhibition is also accessible to the many visitors who are likely to be more or less unfamiliar with the artistic, social and political context of the works, background information appropriate to the complexity of the subject matter will also be included. Ideally, this will enable visitors to gain an insight into the life and culture of modern China. An extensive catalogue will also be published to accompany the exhibition. It will include an interview with the collector, essays by the curators, explanations and analyses of individual works and general introductions to socio-political and artistic developments in China over the past three decades. Fringe events related to the exhibition, with lectures, seminars, performances, concerts, cuisine etc., will also introduce the audience to other aspects of Chinese culture.

In terms of space, the presentation of the Sigg Collection will be largest exhibition in the history of the Fine Arts Museum Bern. In order to take advantage of this extraordinary opportunity, much of the museum’s permanent collection will have to be dismantled for the period of the exhibition, which will occupy the entire extension as well as part of the old Stettler building. At Holderbank will be displayed especially the spectacular large installations and paintings that do not fit into the museum. Together with the Einstein exhibition at the History Museum and the inauguration of the Paul Klee Centre, the Sigg Collection will be a highlight of the 2005 “Berner Kunstsommer” that will attract attention far beyond the region. From an international point of view, this exhibition will undoubtedly set a landmark in the Western reception of Chinese art.