Guy Ullens is a Belgian former CEO of a food-processing company. It was a family business.
He became addicted to Chinese contemporary art in the years 1990. In 2002, he hired a curator in order to buy one painting each day ! His name is Fei Dawei, an art critic well-known for Chinese art. Guy Ullens now has more than 1,500 artworks in his collection.
He has set up a major exhibition of his collection in Paris in 2002 at the Espace Cardin. The exhibition was called “Paris-Beijing” and aimed at promoting Chinese artists in Europe.
Guy Ullens is fascinated by China since he was a child. His father would tell him about his business trips over there and how nice the Chinese were.
Years later, he studied in Singapore and learned about the Chinese thinking. He loved the way painting in China is a spiritual path. “Man is very small” he says.
Ullens had to move to Switzerland where collectors have a preferable fiscal climate than in the European Union. He regrets that he cannot hang all his works in his house anymore. Thus the Swiss are well-equipped with huge warehouse specialized in hosting artworks from collectors worldwide.
In 2007, the Guy and Myriam Ullens Foundation opened in Beijing in a former arms factory restored by the architect Jean-Michel Wilmotte. It shows Chinese and Western contemporary art.
