Central to the stories of many of the world's great art galleries are the acquisitions and
bequests that shaped their collections. So it is with M+ - a new museum of visual culture in
the West Kowloon Cultural District of Hong Kong - and the M+ Sigg Collection. Acquired by the
museum in 2012 from the Swiss businessman diplomat and art collector Uli Sigg the collection
consists of 1 510 works of contemporary Chinese art dating from the 1970s to the present and
ranging across all media. Most significantly perhaps it offers a unique window on the
remarkable flowering of experimental artistic practices in China during this time - a period of
unprecedented social and economic change in the country that saw artists devise new sometimes
radical approaches to artmaking formulating new connections between art and society and
developing ground-breaking conceptual methodologies. Published to coincide with the
presentation of the M+ Sigg Collection at the opening of the M+ building Chinese Art Since
1970 features more than 600 works by more than 300 artists represented by the collection among
them Ai Weiwei Cao Fei and Geng Jianyi. After introductory essays by Pi Li and Uli Sigg an
illustrated chronology spanning the years 1972 to 2020 highlights important social events
exhibitions and artistic movements to establish a context for the discussion of the featured
artists and their work that follows. Punctuating this discussion are contributions from
renowned art historians curators and critics from across the globe on specific works and
practices together with in-depth explanations of key concepts and events from Cynical Realism
to the seminal exhibition China Avant-Garde. Through the medium of the world's pre-eminent
collection of contemporary Chinese art Chinese Art Since 1970 offers an unparalleled
introduction to one of the most culturally dynamic periods in modern Chinese history. With over
700 illustrations
