The June announcement that Uli Sigg — the foremost international collector of Chinese contemporary art — had sealed a deal to donate the vast majority of his collection to the M+ museum in Hong Kong's West Kowloon Cultural District set off a storm of commentary in mainland China. Although some have been supportive, many others have questioned Sigg’s motives. The two issues causing the most vexation? The decision to send the collection to Hong Kong rather than mainland China, and the “part gift/part purchase” agreement under which M+ bought 47 works from Sigg (beyond the more than 1,000 included in the gift), for a total sum of $22.7 million.

Cynicism about western collectors’ motives in regard to Chinese contemporary art runs deep in China, and the skepticism towards Sigg’s donation follows the controversy that surrounded the Sotheby's auction of the Ullens collection last year. Although Guy Ullens has been at pains to indicate his long term commitment to China through his Ullens Center for Contemporary Art in Beijing, many believe the sale showed his support for Chinese contemporary art to have been largely commercially driven.

To tease out some of the issues being raised by his donation, ARTINFO China’s Shen Boliang and Yan Xiaoxiao sat down with Uli Sigg for a wide-ranging interview, touching on why his collection of contemporary Chinese art is the best in the world, why he chose M+, his faith in the long-term future of Hong Kong, and how — for him at least — collecting has never been about the money.

M+ bought 47 works from your collection. How did you reach an agreement which combines donation and purchase?

In the negotiation, when we were discussing about evaluation and all these things, we agreed that M+ will fund around 15 percent of the total value to allow me to get some contribution for my future collecting and for activities like the Chinese Contemporary Art Award [a biennial award for artists and critics founded by Sigg in 1997]. So, it is part donation and part sale. This model is common now in the international scene. You may know about Anthony D’Offay in London, who made such a donation. He received about 25 percent of the market value. Or the donation of Italian Count Giuseppe Panza di Biumo, who donated a large collection of minimal art to the Guggenheim in New York. He also got 25 percent of the value. This shows the museum also made a commitment.

Who selected the part to purchase?

I made these two parts. Sotheby’s did an independent evaluation. M+ is a public museum, so they need an independent evaluation, for their own record and also to publish. So they assigned Sotheby’s, and Sotheby’s made a report for them: The evaluation of the sale part and the evaluation of the donation part.

What are the works in the part that has been donated?

Mainly the works from the 1980s. Like Geng Jianyi’s “Second Situation,” the four faces, Wang Guangyi’s old work, Huang Yongping’s old work.

Last April, after the Ullens Collection auction at Sotheby’s Hong Kong, you said to Reuters that you did bid, “but the prices were too high.” What’s your opinion on an artwork’s artistic value and its price?

Yes, I was there. It is a pity I could not buy because it was so expensive. Beyond my own budget, I said, this is just too expensive for me. I don’t want to spend that kind of money for works which cannot match my own works.

But this time, it’s again Sotheby’s doing the evaluation. Do you really trust the market price, especially that given by an auction house?

You know, that’s the only way M+ can do it. Who else but a major auction house can they find? Who else can make an evaluation of 1,500 works? As for the artistic value and the market value: Are they in sync? Are they out of balance? We could spend this whole afternoon and evening discussing that. The market is a reality we must accept whether we like it or not. Of course the market has dominated the whole art discourse in China. That’s the reason why I created an art critic award. There must be some independent critics who can somehow balance the art market. The market shouldn’t be everything — but it is a reality.

Many people have compared the donation of your collection with the auction of the Ullens collection. They argue Ullens collected only to make money, while you collected to donate to the Chinese people. Do you agree?

It’s the reality. Actually, for many years I consistently said that I wanted to build this collection as a document and I wanted to give it back to China. I said it all the time, and then I just did what I said. Yet after I made the donation, people have looked for all kinds of motives behind the action. But it is just that simple and there actually is nothing else. Now the Ullens... I don’t know, obviously money played a role and he got a lot of money.

Have you heard the criticism on your donation?

Yes, I just heard it as I couldn’t read it in Chinese myself. I think criticism is fine; contemporary art is about debate, as it should be — but some of it is highly unprofessional. You should know what you’re talking about. I’m referring to such comments as “it’s all trash” or “it’s all modern art before 1985.” How could they possibly know this without knowing even remotely about the collection inventory? Maybe they’re right but they cannot know it. Later people can debate. That’s fine with me. But they need to know the collection and know the collection concept. For many years I’ve been very involved in Western art, not just Chinese, and I can compare the Western art operating system with the Chinese one. So I’m very happy to debate with people on a professional level.

Hopefully soon M+ will put everything on their website. All the works, all the artists. So people can see what the collection consists of. Some people said, “Oh, they are just old trash from before 1985,” or, “They are just political,” or, “Just famous names.” There are suddenly so many specialists who comment about my collection. But informed comments are impossible. They cannot know because this collection has never been published. Maybe around a maximum of 300 images have been shown in different exhibitions and in different books about my exhibitions — which amounts to 15 percent of the collection. So it is impossible that anyone can know my collection. Maybe it's a bad collection, but they simply cannot know.

You have said you appreciate the world-class standard of M+. Nowadays, many important western museums have also started collecting Chinese contemporary art. But some museums' approach implies a simplified western perspective or market-oriented discourse. As a collector who is quite familiar with both the Chinese and Western art context, how do you define M+'s “world-class standard?”

I think I have a very different approach to collecting. It is different from the large international institutions' approach to contemporary Chinese art. They can only focus on those approved names or works. They just add some Chinese flavor to their collection. From early on, I’ve had a strategy in collecting Chinese art. I wanted it to be a mirror of Chinese art production, across time and across all media. To put my personal taste in the background, and collect like an institution. As to the concept of my collecting, I’m on the international council of MoMA, of Tate Modern — I mean, I have many opportunities to study how these organizations collect. My concept of collecting Chinese art is not to just accumulate masterpieces, just to present masterpieces. Of course you must have masterpieces, but you also need the works to contextualize the masterpieces. They may be considered secondary artists or works, but serve to create understanding. I have been thinking of my collection as a web, not as a chain of pearls. It is a web where each work builds the context. Thus they form a coherent text. It is very different from just getting the masterpieces — which anyone with money can do. So I collect in this way and want to create what I call a document. This document has a true value as something to read that contains Chinese art history from the 1970s to today. Of course, no collection is complete, and of course my collection has gaps, things are missing. I just think it is much better than anything else that exists.

You said your collection is like a web, a document. But now that you have donated a part of it don’t you worry that it will break the web or scatter the document?

The way I made the choice was first to put together the collection for M+ in a way that it can tell the story from the 1970s to today. So I took the best materials from my collection to build that storyline. What I’ve kept are works quite similar to works in the donation, or gifts I received from artists, or maybe some pieces very personal to me. Altogether I chose 1,500 works. I donated another 200 works of my collection to a foundation in Switzerland. I just kept 400 works for myself.

On many occasions, you have already explained why you chose Hong Kong, rather than the Chinese mainland, as a new home for your collection. But we still wonder: Why now? M+ will only open in 2017. Can you predict how things go in the coming five years? For example, there was an art boom in Beijing five years ago, but now that bubble has burst. And in Hong Kong a new Chief Executive came into power last month, and there were protests. Do you feel confident about the future of the Hong Kong art scene?

I am in no position to comment on the Chief Executive of Hong Kong. I am in no position to say it is a good choice or not. As to the long-term future of Hong Kong, I’m quite confident. Hong Kong will be an avant-garde model for the mainland. I will focus more on the museum’s situation. Now Hong Kong is about shopping. If you are in Hong Kong and you want to go beyond shopping, there is not much you can do. I am also thinking of the more than 40 million mainland Chinese visiting this year alone: What are they going to do when visiting Hong Kong? Yes, they can go shopping. But they will tend to visit additional attractions. And that’s what M+ will be. We plan to communicate not only with the international audiences who are coming to Hong Kong, but also with the mainland audiences who are coming to Hong Kong.

Also, the Art Fair (Art HK) will become much more important. It is the number one in Asia already. Hong Kong is the trading hub for art in Asia now. It will attract lots of art communities and the art public worldwide. So I think Hong Kong is a good spot to go forward. If you look at the museum itself, I had discussions with the Chief Executive of Hong Kong and Chief Secretary of Hong Kong (the previous ones), and they both told me how important the West Kowloon Cultural District is, how important the museum is going to be for them, and how important this collection is for the museum, because it gives the museum a focus. There is a plan and money to build it, but they did not have the content yet. So my donation will give them one major focus on Chinese contemporary art. Since there is no other museum in the world focusing on and having such a significant collection of Chinese contemporary art, it is a unique opportunity to take the number one spot in the world for Chinese contemporary art.

They aspire for highest professionalism, and they convinced me that it is going to be a world-class museum. They hired Lars Nittve. He is also the person who I negotiated with. He already opened the Tate Modern, a world-class museum. He also ran several other important museums. So he is the guarantor that it will have a world-class standard. All these elements convinced me that there is a great opportunity in Hong Kong.

You asked me why now? If my collection goes somewhere, I have an interest in helping shape the institution. It is a rare opportunity to join such a project in the planning stage. Therefore, it is a good time to decide and then sit together with an institution to develop the museum. I will be on their museum board and acquisition board. I will be on the jury selecting the architecture and the design for the museum. They want my help and my contribution to build the whole concept and the museum. So it is a good time to decide.

Considering my age, I also need to find an optimal solution for this collection. You know, it is a very large collection, if something happens to me, then what will happen with the collection? From all points of view, it is the moment to make a decision.

You donated the collection as a gift to the people of Hong Kong. But did you think about what this collection will do for Hong Kong artists?

Of course I think about this. But, first of all, my collection can’t be everything to the museum. My collection covers the mainland. But something else the M+ must, and will, do by itself is collect and exhibit Hong Kong artists. That is not my duty. And I know they will do that. And I will encourage this very much. It is a big museum — size-wise it's like MoMA in New York. There are lots of Hong Kong artists. So I think it is a good opportunity for them. Now they are almost cut off from the international mainstream. It is still difficult for a Hong Kong artist to gain recognition beyond Hong Kong. Not because they do not do good art, but because there is no major museum with contemporary activities attracting international attention. M+ will provide this for them. I think Hong Kong artists will be quite happy about M+.

As far as we know, Pi Li is the only person in M+ who is from Chinese mainland. Others are either from a Western or Hong Kong background. What makes you still feel confident about your collection of Chinese art in such a situation?

Personally, when we started the discussion, I insisted that they have people from Mainland China in the curatorial team, because even to just appreciate and evaluate my own collection, it needs that kind of mainland expertise. Otherwise they may think it’s just a collection like many others. But M+ is still very young, maybe having just 20 people now, and they must grow to about 400 by the time they open. Of course they must look to the mainland because of my collection, and it’s very much what they want to do. And I think this will create very good opportunities for mainland curators, just to see how professional people like Lars Nittve build the museum. I think it’s a very good learning process for everybody. If I were young, that’s where I would want to work!

How can people see your collection before M+ officially opens in 2017? Will M+ cooperate with institutions in mainland China to show your collection?

I made a point of this in the negotiation. What is very important to me is that M+ must cooperate with a minimum of two mainland institutions, if those institutions want to exhibit or do research, because it’s very much my interest that the mainland people can see it.

But there are also other obligations aside from the requirement that M+ must work together with mainland institutions. M+ must have a liberal lending policy. So the works will be seen. They’re also committed, which is their own desire, to doing systematic research about the collection, including documentation and a website of the collection.

In your opinion, what’s the healthy relationship between a private collection and a public collection?

I think like what I do with M+. Donate works and contribute. I would have loved to do it in mainland China! It could have set an example of how to do it. But nobody was interested. I think we can show how it could happen now in Hong Kong. Because I am personally convinced that, in the end, public institutions must form the public memory as their core. And that’s also why I didn’t build my own private museum. I just don’t think in the long term it is the way to go. With private museum owners, they might lose interest after a few years, may run out of money or have an eclectic taste for something at their core. That’s also why I was interested in cooperating with Chinese mainland public institutions, but it didn’t work out. So now I am working with a Hong Kong public institution. So the Chinese mainland public institutions really must think about this, how to bring in collectors, how to bring in support and maybe sponsorship. But, will they do it? How will they do it? Please ask them, and then please tell me.

M+ is a government-funded public art institution. With such an institution, what do you value most, the standard afforded by a high-level museum, the critical perspective on the existing discourse, or the possibilities of making new things happen?

I think in Hong Kong, a critical perspective is possible. I have been told so by people like Lars Nittve — it has been their life and they stand for that. That’s maybe a good part of Western culture, that they insist on autonomy and independence. They will fight for it. Maybe a curator of Chinese origin would not dare to fight for it the same way, maybe a Hong Kong person would not fight for it to the same degree. A person like Lars Nittve has credibility. So I thought, if I want to bring [my collection] to China, certainly in Hong Kong there’s the highest degree of autonomy for an institution. But nobody today can predict with certainty what kind of interference will come from the government five years from now.

Some people say that M+ has an opportunity to rearrange the narrative of Chinese contemporary art history, as many feel that the existing history of Chinese contemporary art is written in either a “left-leaning” or “market-orientated” way. You also said your collection is like a historical document. Is there any difference between the narrative of your document and the presently existing contemporary art story?

First of all, where is that narrative? There’s no conclusion yet about what the narrative is. There are just different explanations of the same phenomenon. To rewrite something, it must have been written first. But where can we find it? So the writing hasn’t happened yet and now there’s a big debate: What will be the canon of Chinese contemporary art? And you already see that different players try to pull the tablecloth to their side. Who has been important? Who created the names and the labels? It’s in process. It’s a very interesting process to see.

Now, what’s the ambition of M+? I think because they now have this collection, they must do research, and ideally cooperate with mainland academies and researchers. I don’t think they have a preconceived idea at all. Lars Nittve is Swedish, and he just recently got involved in Chinese art. Now M+ has hired Pi Li, and of course it will also be his task to do research. There’s no preconceived agenda to explain things in a specific way, yet there must be a desire to research. I don’t think it’s then about non-left-leaning, non-commercial, or the opposite. Now they simply face the task of doing research on Chinese art history; without my collection, they would have focused on maybe Southeast Asian art, I don’t know…

Will you continue to collect Chinese contemporary art?

Yes.

Will there be a different orientation?

I think there’s no need to collect things in quite the broad manner as before, when I tried to form an encyclopedic collection in the way that I described to you. Going forward, I will focus more on artists of my personal interest, on very young art and on producing artworks together with artists.