Movie “The Chinese Lives of Uli Sigg” 7/29/17

July 29, 2017

This movie goes through the recent Chinese history, especially Chinese contemporary arts, with Sigg’s experience with China. Sigg was working for Schindler Escalator and Elevator Company and he was hoping to set up the first joint ventures between Chinese government and his company in 1979, in the post-Mao era. After he finished his assignment with Schindler he was assigned to become an Swiss ambassador to China, and he started to collect Chinese contemporary arts, mainly for his official residence first. And eventually he built a world-class personal collection of Chinese contemporary arts. He introduced talented young artists to the world, and their arts became so popular and so expensive (!). So he advocated to Chinese arts and artists, Ai Weiwei, and in return (!) his collection became so valuable. Sigg is an interesting person, who has been super successful in commercial company, as a diplomat, as an art collector and as a human being! Sigg shows and talks to us about a hidden side of a complex and mysterious country.