TWO thousand Neolithic axe-heads have been arranged with patient precision. An exploration of China’s heritage by Ai Weiwei, the work is the dramatic centrepiece of an exhibition of Chinese art of the last four decades at the Whitworth museum in Manchester, which was named British Museum of the Year 2015 on July 1st. It is indicative of the show’s appeal, though, that the axe-heads are less arresting than a small paintbox, shown next door, which an artist would have slipped into his satchel to avoid detection during the Cultural Revolution.
The works come from the collection of Uli Sigg, a Swiss businessman and later diplomat who began visiting China in 1979 and became involved in the nascent contemporary art scene. Having amassed what is now widely considered to be the world’s most comprehensive collection of Chinese contemporary art, in 2012 Mr Sigg gave the greater part of it—donating almost 1,500 works and selling 47 more—to the M+ museum of visual culture, which is due to open in Hong Kong in 2019.
Mr Sigg cultivated friendships with artists, but felt no inclination to buy their experiments with European forms. The Cynical...
from The Economist: Books and arts http://ift.tt/1IvDd6w
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