Tag: saatchi gallery

Trick or Treat? Saatchi in Adelaide

August 8th, 2011 · · Shows that are on! No comments - Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

http://images.theage.com.au/2011/08/03/2533904/art-353-IdrisKhan-200x0.jpg

Idris Khan, Every Bernd And Hilla Becher Spherical Type Gasholders, 2004.

SAATCHI GALLERY IN ADELAIDE: BRITISH ART NOW Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, until October 23

Idris Khan’s pictures are perhaps the most engaging in the show. The grunge aesthetic is alive and well in the next generation of Young British Artists, but so is gimmickry, writes JOHN McDONALD.

Ever since Sensation hit the headlines in 1997, contemporary British art has been synonymous with scandal. When the show appeared at the Royal Academy of Art in London, the catalyst was Marcus Harvey’s huge portrait of the murderess, Myra Hindley, made from hundreds of children’s handprints. In Brooklyn, two years later, the flashpoint was Chris Ofili’s The Holy Virgin Mary, with its balls of elephant dung. The Australian part of the tour was cancelled amid a storm of controversy.

Twelve years later we finally have our exhibition of new British art but, with one exception, it is an entirely different generation that features in Saatchi Gallery in Adelaide: British Art Now, at the Art Gallery of South Australia. The sole relic of the glory days of the YBAs (‘‘Young British Artists’’) is Tracey Emin’s My Bed (1999), hailed in the catalogue as ‘‘a cultural icon of the 20th century’’. Rather a big call, that. ‘‘One of the cultural curiosities of the 20th century’’ might have been a better description. For while it is fascinating to lay eyes on the infamous bed, with its filthy sheets, soiled undies, empty vodka bottles, used condom, and other bio-hazardous material, the interest is voyeur-istic not aesthetic. It’s comical to imagine an installation team extracting the bed from a crate and arranging each bit of detritus in exactly the right place.

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Haroon Mirza: Play that funky cardboard

March 29th, 2011 · · Articles of interest, Find an Artist, Shows that are on!, Writing about Art/ Artists No comments - Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
    ross Section of a Revolution, 2011, by Haroon Mirza
    Fun and liberating . . . Cross Section of a Revolution, 2011 Photograph: Ken Adlard

    When Haroon Mirza won the Northern Art prize earlier this year, the regional news programme Look North followed its report on his victory with some studio banter. “The weatherman threw some clothes on the floor,” remembers Mirza, “and said he could win a modern art prize. It escalated into a controversy – but I just thought it was a bit funny.”

    The joke is now on Look North as the award has led to an exhibition of Mirza’s work at the prestigious Lisson Gallery in London. But the truth is there’s something nostalgic, rather than offensive, about Look North’s response. In the 1990s, when British contemporary art leapt into the limelight, tabloids were constantly making jokes in the same vein. The Sun took a bag of chips to the Saatchi Gallery: “We bring the chips to Damien Hirst’s fish.” That kind of mockery has long lost its edge in London: the art world rules down south. But in the north, apparently, artists still have to endure taunts. And this is not bad for art at all, if Mirza is anything to go by.

    Mirza is something new: an exciting young artist – he’s 33 – who chooses to work in northern England, despite being born in London. Before 1,000 people write in to point out that the north has many fine artists, can I just say this: pull the other one. The north has for years been the dog that did not bark in British art. Liverpool, Manchester and other cities have staged high-profile art events and commissioned public art, not least Gateshead’s Angel of the North; a visiting Martian might even have concluded that the region was the epicentre of British art. But it’s not. No matter how much effort has gone into fabricating an art scene, there is a world of difference between being a place that promotes art, and being a place where artists choose to live and work. Northern English cities never became real centres of artistic creativity in the way Glasgow and London are. But if Mirza is anything to go by, that is changing.

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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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