Collecting art with restraint

Collecting art, as eminent Swiss collector Uli Sigg has come to learn, is an exercise in focus and restraint.

Mr Sigg, 67, tells Life!: "Everybody starts with 'I like art' but that doesn't make an interesting collection. What you need is a focus and it can be anything. Personal taste leads to an accumulation of things, which may or may not fit together."

Here recently for Art Stage, he spoke at a forum on the side of the fair. The forum was organised by the Centre for Contemporary Art, an art research-cum-exhibition space slated to open at the Gillman Barracks art precinct later this year.

Mr Sigg adds: "It is perfectly okay if you want to live with your art that it should be about your own taste. But if you want to take collecting a step further than decorating your own environment, then you need to find your focus."