Donation from the Sigg Collection: Mao Tongqiang’s “Family Tree” for the Museum für Asiatische Kunst

27.11.2025
Museum für Asiatische Kunst

The Museum für Asiatische Kunst (Asian Art Museum) of the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin (National Museums in Berlin) is pleased to announce a major addition to its collection of contemporary East Asian art: The monumental photographic installation Family Tree by Chinese artist Mao Tongqiang enters the museum’s collection as a donation from the Sigg Collection. The work will be shown for the first time in Berlin from 28 November 2025 in the exhibition All Under Heaven. Harmony in Family and State at the Humboldt Forum.

Measuring around 400 quare metres, Family Tree ranks among Mao Tongqiang’s most impressive works. Created over several years of extensive field research, it comprises photographic material of around 1,000 families. Family Tree captures the diversity of contemporary Chinese family structures while pointing to the profound transformations China has undergone from the Confucian family order of the imperial era to the mobile and increasingly individualised forms of life in the 21st century.

The museum’s historical collections, which document art and material culture across many centuries, are significantly enriched by Family Tree. The work offers an immediate perspective on the societal transformations shaping modern China and complements the longue durée of the holdings with a concise contemporary dimension. Seen together, these temporal layers illuminate how radically household structures, social organisation and everyday life have changed within only a few decades.

Collection of Dr Uli and Rita Sigg

The realisation and preservation of Family Tree – its scale, conceptual clarity and documentary precision — would not have been possible without the long-standing commitment of Dr Uli and Rita Sigg. Their collection is one of the world’s most significant archives of Chinese contemporary art, preserving key artistic positions and cultural narratives of China’s transformation since the 1970s. 

Presentation of Family Tree from 28 November 2025

This generous donation now enables Family Tree to be shown for the first time ever, initially in a partial presentation due to its exceptional dimensions. The exhibition All Under Heaven  brings together works by He Chongyue, Siren Eun Young Jung, Jane Jin Kaisen, Mirae Kate-Hers Rhee and Mao Tongqiang, exploring the complex relationship between family and state in China and Korea in the 20th and 21st centuries between ideology, care and control.