Mr. Sigg (Courtesy China.org.cn)

Swiss collector Uli Sigg has donated 1,463 works to M+, a Hong Kong museum set to open in 2017. The news was announced Tuesday by the West Kowloon Cultural District Authority. In all, the donated works are estimated at $163 million.

Here is Mr. Sigg's statement, via Artforum:

“In the early 1990s I realized that nobody was collecting Chinese contemporary art even remotely systematically—neither individuals nor institutions in China or abroad. That seemed odd for the biggest cultural space in the world, and for what will be in hindsight a very important period. So I decided to change my approach and collect like an institution would: documenting the art production of China from day one to today—along the timeline, across all media, rather than according to my personal taste as a private collector would.”