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| Julia White on the Sigg Collection |
| By ArtZineChina |
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 ulia White, a senior curator of the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive in California, is behind one of the biggest exhibitions of Chinese contemporary art ever to appear in the United States. The "Mahjong" exhibition at the museum features the works borrowed from Uli Sigg, one of the world's biggest collectors of Chinese contemporary art. He began collecting long before it was fashionable. He published a book, called "Mahjong," about his massive collection, including interviews with some prominent artists. And now, a small part of his collection is being exhibited at the Berkeley Art Museum in San Francisco. ArtZineChina.com caught up with Ms. White to talk about the show and Mr. Sigg's collection.
ArtZinechina：How and why did the museum come up with the idea for this show?
Julia White：Orville Schell, former Dean of the University of California, Berkeley’s School of Journalism and now Professor Emeritus, knew of Uli  Sigg and his collection. In conversations with former Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAM/PFA) Director Kevin Consey and Chief Curator Lucinda Barnes, Mr. Schell suggested that they look into meeting Mr. Sigg and visiting the exhibition in Europe where the collection was being shown. The two traveled to Hamburg to see the exhibition and immediately recognized the quality of the material and the potential it held for a major contemporary show in Berkeley.
As the Senior Curator of Asian Art at the Berkeley Art Museum and as a China specialist, I was also brought into the decision-making process for the exhibition.
The museum recognized that indeed no other collection worldwide had the depth and breadth of Chinese art from the last 40 years. The University of California, Berkeley is one of this country’s most extensive and in-depth academic centers for the study of Chinese culture, with broad and multi-dimensional interest in China, and BAM/PFA is in a unique position to add strong scholarly backing to an exhibition of this magnitude.
ArtZineChina ：Who curated the show and what was the curator’s intent? What were the challenges the curators faced in presenting the show?
Julia White：I coordinated the exhibition at BAM/PFA and co-curated it with Lucinda Barnes, Chief Curator and Director of Programs and Collections.
The lead-time for preparing the exhibition was very tight. The agreement with Mr. Sigg was not confirmed until September 2007,  which meant that the preparations for the exhibition had to be completed in about one year’s time. This is a very short period in which to put together and confirm checklists, arrange for funding, develop programming, and write and produce a catalog. The material had been seen in Europe, but had not been previously presented to an American audience, which required that some very basic informational groundwork be done quickly and efficiently.
ArtZineChina ：What mix of art works are they selecting to represent the show and why?
Julia White：The Sigg collection provides a unique opportunity to experience the blossoming of contemporary Chinese art in a unique and authentic fashion. Uli Sigg has almost exclusively collected directly from the artists. By purchasing from an artist directly, and more often than not just as the work was created, Mr. Sigg acquired works that best represented a particular moment in an artist’s career, and that added both to the collection and to a larger understanding of the artist. The curators felt strongly that the principles of the original European venues, such as the idea that political, social, and economic issues in China could be understood through the artwork, should be maintained, and that using the metaphor of a mahjong game  to describe the methods of collecting was apt and broadly understandable. We also wanted to recognize the quality of “Chineseness” that permeates these art works, and to explore what aspect of their work is related to national identity. Although the Berkeley show has fewer objects than the European exhibitions had, we wished to maintain the broad representation of work from the period of the Cultural Revolution to the present. This span of 40 years offers a very valuable key to understanding the roots and growth of contemporary Chinese art and culture. The range of materials in the exhibition, from painting, to mixed media, installation, sculpture, video, and photography, mirrors the great breadth of the collection.
ArtZineChina：What is the message the museum would like to leave with visitors of this show?
Julia White ：That Chinese art opens a window onto the vast changes that have occurred in China over the last four decades.
ArtZineChina ：How much experience does the museum have with Chinese contemporary art?
Julia White：Lucinda Barnes specializes in international contemporary art, and I am a Chinese-art specialist. We have both curated numerous museum exhibitions on a variety of subjects.
ArtZineChina : Are there certain themes the museum is trying to represent with the show?
 Julia White: The exhibition explores many themes on various levels. The galleries are loosely divided as follows:
o The Cultural Revolution
o Mao and Beyond
o Beijing—The Changing Horizon
o Beyond Calligraphy
o Consumerism
o Individual, Society, Family
o Alternative Landscapes
o Tiananmen
ArtZineChina：Does the Berkeley Art Museum collect Chinese contemporary art?
Julia White：The museum has a few examples of Chinese contemporary art. The museum began collecting contemporary Chinese art in the late 1990s. While we have wanted to continue collecting in this area, the growth of the market has made that difficult for many museums.
ArtZineChina：Will there be a catalog?
Julia White：The exhibition is accompanied by a publication titled Mahjong: Art, Film, and Change in China. I wrote the introduction, and there are essays by leading scholars Julia F. Andrews, Professor of Art History, The Ohio State University; Kuiyi Shen, Professor of Art History, University of  California, San Diego; and James Quandt, Senior Programmer, Cinematheque Ontario, as well as comments by Uli Sigg. These are followed by color reproductions of all works in the exhibition and biographical information on each artist.
ArtZineChina：Why is Mr. Sigg now showing these works at the Berkeley Art Museum?
Julia White：BAM/PFA wanted to present this exhibition not only because of the breadth and quality of the Sigg collection, but also because, as a university museum, it is able to involve an academic community in viewing and assessing the last 40 years of art in China. Since the University has a very strong connection with Asia—and especially with China—we have the resources to provide context for works, and, equally important, an audience that knows, understands, and is vitally interested in contemporary China. Berkeley is an ideal place to explore ideas and intentions in art on a level field, irrespective of popular notions about what constitutes contemporary Chinese art. Of course we anticipate that a very broad audience, from Berkeley, the Bay area, and across the country, will also visit the exhibition.
ArtZineChina：What pieces are central to the show?
Julia White：From my perspective, I feel it is essential that we show the full range of the artwork from this time-period. This is one of the most important aspects of the Sigg collection, that it shows the development of the new art movement in China from its Socialist Realist beginnings to the current avant-garde. This collection and exhibition demonstrate the evolution of the arts in China over the past four decades, and through that, it demonstrates the country’s changing culture.
ArtZineChina：Where else have these works been shown before?
Julia White：Many of the works have been seen at the Kunstmuseum Bern and at the Hamburg Kunstalle. A small selection of mostly post-1990 works was shown at the Miró Museum in Barcelona, and a few works have been seen in various international exhibitions. However, this is the first time the material has been shown together in the United States.
ArtZineChina：How did you go about deciding which works to show?
Julia White：We wanted to represent the entire collection fairly, but of course had to consider the available gallery space. In the long run, we committed 9 out of BAM/PFA’s 10 gallery spaces to the Mahjong exhibition. There are now 142 objects by 96 artists in the show. We represent all the major themes mentioned above, and we were very conscious of the need to include all media. We also endeavored to bring recently created works into the mix, including several new works by young and relatively unknown women artists such as Liang Yuanwei (Piece of Life) and Geng Xue (Han Xizai’ Dinner No. 2). New works by established artists like Feng Mengbo (2007WCSSXL01 Wrong Coding Shanshui) and Shi Guorui (Bird’s Nest Stadium) were important to add because they do show the maturation and sophistication of Chinese artists. Liang Yuanwei’s work was just created, and this is the first time it will be publicly shown. The same is true for Shi Guorui’s Bird’s Nest Stadium, a camera obscura photograph of a building that has become an international icon. Geng Xue’s work is the second in a series and was shown in Barcelona but has not been exhibited anywhere else. It is her final piece for graduation from art school. Feng Mengbo’s work is a recent collaboration with Uli Sigg and was shown in Salzburg and also in Barcelona.
ArtZineChina：Can you tell us an interesting story about one of the works, such as how it was created, or how it was purchased, or the story behind the artist’s intent?
Julia White：During my first meeting with Uli Sigg at his home in Switzerland, he was in the midst of an early cyber-conversation with Feng Mengbo about their collaboration on the work Wrong Coding Shanshui, which is in the gallery at the museum now. It was quite interesting to see how the images and conversations between artist and collector were progressing. I’ve studied traditional Chinese landscape painting, and the images reminded me of a long handscroll painting that was undergoing some pretty radical “deconstruction.” In a way, Mr. Sigg’s collaboration with the artist is not unlike that of the traditional patron: He is working with the artist to pursue a new approach, and in the process both he and the artist take new risks. The relationship that Mr. Sigg has established with these artists is quite wonderful.
ArtZineChina：Has there ever been a show of Chinese contemporary art this large in the U.S.?
Julia White：To my knowledge, this is the largest Chinese contemporary art show to be shown in the United States. It is certainly the largest that includes material from the 70s, 80s, and 90s to the present.
 ArtZineChina：What is the single biggest work and the smallest work in the show?
Julia White：Wang Du’s installation Stratégie en Chambre, from 1998, is estimated to be about 33 x 33 feet (ca. 10 meters). Altogether it came on 11 pallets, each weighing about 1,300 pounds (590 kg), with seven additional crates. The whole work weighs about 17,600 pounds (8,000 kg). It’s a pretty fantastic installation; I love it! The smallest piece is Lu Hao’s Grain of Sand, which is just that.
ArtZineChina：Will there be any lectures or events around the opening of the show?
Julia White：We will have extensive programming, including film series and conversations between people interested and involved in China, among other offerings. Additionally, Uli Sigg will be in residence on campus in September, and Ai Weiwei will be our artist in residence. A complete schedule of programs can be found on the BAM/PFA website: http://bampfa.berkeley.edu. 
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