In a unique collaboration - one exhibition, two cities - the Sherman Contemporary Art Foundation (SCAF) and the National Portrait Gallery (NPG) presents contemporary Chinese portraiture drawn from the collection of former Swiss diplomat, businessman and art collector, Uli Sigg. Works that are by degrees, provocative, playful, political and engaging will thrill visitors in Sydney and Canberra. The exhibition offers a unique opportunity to see work drawn from the cream of Sigg’s collection widely acknowledged as the largest and most significant collection of contemporary Chinese art anywhere in the world.

Go Figure! is curated by Dr Claire Roberts, senior lecturer in art history at Adelaide University, who has had a long and active involvement with Chinese contemporary art. The exhibition includes painting, drawing, mixed media, sculpture, photography, video and installation works by Chinese artists from 1979 to the present. Go Figure! explores the idea of play - artists’ liberal use of humour, irony and the absurd - that is present in much experimental Chinese art.

In June Sigg donated 1,463 works from the collection to Hong Kong’s M+ Museum which will open in 2017, part of the West Kowloon Cultural District Authority development. Go Figure! will offer Australians a unique opportunity to view 55 of these works. Go Figure! will be shown exclusively at the NPG in Canberra and SCAF in Sydney.

The central work to be shown at SCAF is Sun Yuan and Peng Yu’s, Old People’s Home, thirteen lifesize wheelchairs and sculpted hyper real figures reminiscent of elderly world leaders. The wheelchairs perambulate around the entire gallery space with technical features that allow these mobile symbols of infirmity to avoid visitors. Other artists exhibiting at SCAF include Ai Weiwei, Shen Shaomin, Wang Jianwei and Zhou Tao.