BLOOMBERG: By Frederik Balfour. Swiss art collector Uli Sigg has donated HK$1.3 billion ($170 million) worth of contemporary Chinese art to a Hong Kong museum scheduled to open in 2017.

Uli Sigg is giving 1,463 works from his collection while the new M+ museum will pay approximately 22 million Swiss francs ($22.9 million) for an additional 47 works from the 1970s and 1980s, Lars Nittve, executive director of M+, said in a telephone interview last night.

The works will anchor the permanent collection of M+, a flagship modern art museum in the West Kowloon Cultural District.
“It is not so common to have a major collection in place before you have a building,” said Nittve, the founding director of the Tate Modern in London. “This is a major signal of trust.”
The Sigg collection comprises works by leading artists, among them Ai Weiwei, Zhang Xiaogang and Fang Lijun, Nittve said.Read more