Tag: art london

Saatchi Seeks Takers for $38 Million Collection after U.K. Talks Hit Snag

September 9th, 2010 · · Articles of interest No comments - Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

Charles Saatchi, who in July said he was giving the British nation his London gallery and more than 25 million pounds ($38 million) worth of art, is seeking other takers after talks with a state-linked body broke down, his gallery’s associate director said. On July 1, Saatchi said he was giving works to the nation including Tracey Emin’s signature “My Bed” (1998) and Jake & Dinos Chapman’s “Tragic Anatomies” (1996). His gallery, opened in Chelsea in October 2008, would be renamed Museum of Contemporary Art, London, after his retirement. Today, Saatchi Gallery Associate Director Rebecca Wilson said talks with Arts Council England, which manages the funding of cultural bodies on the government’s behalf, had ended. “We have had discussions about the gift with the Arts Council,” said Wilson in an e-mailed response to questions, “but we decided that we weren’t comfortable with the idea of working with them, and wrote to them on 23 July to say that we didn’t want to take our discussions any further.” “We are in conversation with several other potential recipients and will be making a further statement about the gift in due course,” she said. Asked if this meant talks with the government had collapsed completely, and that Saatchi was withdrawing his gift to the nation, Wilson replied, “Not at all.” She would not elaborate. Saatchi, co-founder of the Saatchi & Saatchi advertising agency, is the godfather of the so-called Young British Artists, who include Damien Hirst and Emin. Still an active talent scout at 67, and a buyer and seller of works, Saatchi has shown new Middle Eastern, Chinese, Asian, U.S. and British art at his gallery, and lets young artists exhibit on his website. Gifted Works His July statement said the gifted works would be government-owned, and available to the public at no cost to the taxpayer. A foundation would be set up to run the gallery, and would have the right to buy and sell art. Running costs would be met through sponsorship, catering, retailing and hall hire. U.K. media reports said the talks had broken down on the terms of the gift, and specifically on Saatchi’s wish to retain the right to buy and sell works in a publicly owned museum. Saatchi’s 70,000-square-feet (6,503-square-meter) Chelsea- based building is rented. Its owner is the Cadogan Estate, which, together with Saatchi himself, spent 20 million pounds redeveloping it. As for the Saatchi Gallery’s policy of free admission, it has been sponsored since the gallery’s opening two years ago by auction house Phillips de Pury & Co.

To contact the writer on the story: Farah Nayeri in London at Farahn@bloomberg.net.

Saatchi Gallery: Nice gift Charles, but what now?

July 7th, 2010 · · Articles of interest, Find an Artist, Writing about Art/ Artists No comments - Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Richard Wilson's art installation 20:50 at the Saatchi Gallery
Richard Wilson’s 20:50 at the Saatchi Gallery. The gallery is soon to become the Museum of Contemporary Art, London. Photograph: Linda Nylind

So the Saatchi Gallery is to be renamed the Museum of Contemporary Art, London. The Saatchi Gallery will now join museums of contemporary art in Sydney, Los Angeles, New York (where the museum of contemporary art is better known as the New Museum) and various other major and not so major cities. What hubris, I thought, when I first heard the news. On reflection, this seems churlish. It is an extremely generous gift, and the building itself is a great space for art, is extremely popular and attracts a very broad audience. But it is the collection that is likely to be problematic.

Exhibitions at the Saatchi Gallery are invariably incoherent: the work he shows can be spectacular, but alongside the good there is plenty that is bad or mediocre. We don’t even know what art Saatchi currently owns, or what he is giving to the nation. Even the works he is giving are variable in quality, and not always even the best works Saatchi first exhibited. There’s no artist’s film and video, for instance, and little good photography – and how can you have a museum of contemporary art that ignores these media?

For all his money and enthusiasm, Saatchi has never bought consistently or well. What else is Saatchi donating? Not more Ron Mueck, please.

Unlike other collections of contemporary art that have been shown internationally – the collection of Belgians Anton and Annick Herbert, or the collection of the legendary late German gallerist Konrad Fischer, both of which were built up over decades – Saatchi’s collecting has never had any focus. Young Brits have come and gone, as have artists from the US, Germany, India, China and the Middle East.

Whatever happened to the New Neurotic Realism, an entirely made-up movement that never went anywhere? Richard Wilson’s lake of reflective oil, Tracey Emin’s bed and Jake and Dinos Chapman’s sexualised mannequins never seemed to have much connection, except that they were made by British artists who live in London and happen to know each other. Put these works together with some of the others mentioned and one can only imagine a series of nightmarish, specious exhibitions that misrepresent the trajectories of contemporary art. The hope that the collection will evolve must be tempered by other questions, too: who will curate? What will be bought, and what sold off? Most of all, what does it mean to “continue the same policy that was established when the gallery began 25 years ago”, as the press release has it? The truth is that there never was any policy. In the end, there is only Charles Saatchi: his enthusiasms and, now, his generosity.

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