Rocket man: Uli Sigg on how he began collecting art while working in North Korea
The Missiles (1994-2004) by North Korean artist Pak Yong Chol Photo: Sigg Collection; © The artist The Swiss art collector Uli Sigg first visited North Korea in the 1980s as an employee of the Schindler Elevator Corporation. In 1995 he became the Swiss ambassador there, and was the only foreign art collector permitted to purchase works portraying the regime’s leaders, among them a painting of Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il in front of their country’s rocket arsenal. Sigg’s collection of Korean art—from both North and South Korea—is to go on show in a politically se...