Saatchi Online
The Saatchi Gallery is a London gallery for contemporary art, opened by Charles Saatchi in 1985 in order to show his sizeable (and changing) collection to the public. It is currently located in the Duke of York's HQ, building on Kings Road, a few minutes walk from Sloane Square in Chelsea, London. The 70,000 sq ft Saatchi Gallery is free for the public to view all exhibitions, and is open seven days a week from 10am to 6pm.
The gallery has been a major influence on art in Britain since its opening in 1985. It has also had a history of media controversy, which it has courted according to its detractors, and has had extremes of critical reaction. Many artists shown at the gallery are unknown not only to the general public but also to the commercial art world: showing at the gallery has provided little known artists with their first major exhibition, allowing them to develop their careers.
By showing the work of young – and largely unseen – artists, as well as displaying rarely exhibited work by established international names, the Saatchi Gallery has become one of the best known contemporary art collections in the world. During the past two decades its exhibitions have showcased work by over 150 artists, many of whose work -- as with the likes of Damien Hirst and Jeff Koons -- has gone on to become internationally recognisable.
When The Saatchi Gallery first opened its doors to the public in 1985, access to contemporary art was regarded by many as the privilege of a specialist few. Collector and founder Charles Saatchi believed contemporary art should be available to everyone. By supporting and showing the work of Young British Artists (YBAs), the Saatchi Gallery became directly involved in fuelling interest in and contributing to the growing popularity of contemporary art.
The Saatchi Gallery’s commitment to contemporary art has helped contribute to London’s reputation as one of the world’s leading cultural capitals. The gallery does not shy away from controversy, choosing to exhibit work that is perceived to be provocative despite sometimes extreme reactions from the press and other commentators. This stance means that the gallery continues to have a strong impact on artists and art lovers.
Since its inauguration in 1985, the Saatchi Gallery was located in a converted paint factory at 98a Boundary Road in the North London district of St. John’s Wood until 2002. Then between 2002 - 2003 the Saatchi Gallery sponsored an off-site project space in London’s East End, showing young British artists in a former warehouse building near Old Street. Between 2003 and 2005 the gallery moved to the County Hall Building in Central London next to the London Eye on the South Bank by the River Thames. From October 2008 to present the Saatchi Gallery is located in the Duke of York's HQ, building on King’s Road near Sloane Square in London’s Chelsea district.
Saatchi's collection, and hence the gallery's shows, have had distinct phases, starting with US artists and minimalism, moving on to the Damien Hirst-led Young British Artists, exhibitions of European and American artists, followed by shows purely of painting and then exhibiting again contemporary art from America in USA Today at the Royal Academy in London. In 2008, an exhibition of contemporary Chinese art formed the inaugural exhibition in the new venue for the gallery at the Duke of York's HQ, and forthcoming shows for 2009 are planned to include art from the Middle East. Also planned are survey shows featuring new international sculpture, young American abstract painters, new German artists, photographers etc.
History
Boundary Road
The Saatchi Gallery opened in 1985 in a disused paint factory in Boundary Road, St John's Wood, London NW8, and ran a series of exhibitions, showing many American artists such as Andy Warhol, Cy Twombly, Richard Serra, Brice Marden, Bruce Nauman, Donald Judd, Carl Andre, Sol LeWitt, Jeff Koons and Philip Guston, many of whom were to influence the subsequent generation of Young British Artists who followed in the 1990s. The Saatchi Gallery in Boundary Road was unusual in London for its large, open space, filled with light reflected by high white walls and its 30,000 sq ft (2787.0912 m2) of gallery space devoted to recent art. At this site, designed by Max Gordon Associates, the gallery was comprised of 5 imposing ‘white cube’ style rooms, notable for their clean modern aesthetic.
The first exhibition held between March – October 1985 featured many key works by American minimalist Donald Judd, American abstract painters Brice Marden and Cy Twombly and American pop artist Andy Warhol. This was the first UK exhibition for Twombly and Marden.
These were followed in December 1985 – July 1986 by an exhibition of works by American sculptor John Chamberlain, American minimalists Dan Flavin, Sol Lewitt, Robert Ryman, Frank Stella, and Carl Andre.
Between September 1986 – July 1987 the Saatchi Gallery showed German artist Anselm Kiefer and American minimalist sculptor Richard Serra. The exhibited Richard Serra sculptures were so large that that the caretaker’s flat adjoining the gallery and one wall of the gallery was demolished in order to make room for the installation.
In September 1987 – January 1988, the Saatchi Gallery mounted two exhibitions entitled New York Art Now, featuring Jeff Koons, Robert Gober, Peter Halley, Haim Steinbach, Philip Taaffe and Caroll Dunham. This exhibition introduced these artists to the UK for the first time. The blend of minimalism and pop art had a profound influence on British art students, and this show became a key reference point for many of the young artists would later form the YBA group.
In April – October 1988, the Saatchi Gallery exhibited works by American figurative painter Leon Golub, German painter and photographer Sigmar Polke, and American Abstract Expressionist painter Philip Guston. November 1988 – April 1989 it held a group show featuring several contemporary American artists, most prominently Eric Fischl.
In April – October 1989, the gallery hosted exhibitions of American minimalist Robert Mangold and American conceptual artist Bruce Nauman.
In November 1989 – February 1990, there followed a series of exhibitions featuring School of London artists including Lucian Freud, Frank Auerbach, Leon Kossoff and Howard Hodgkin.
In January – July 1991, the Saatchi Gallery held exhibitions of the work of American pop artist Richard Artschwager, and American photographer Cindy Sherman, and British installation artist Richard Wilson. Wilson’s piece 20:50, a room entirely filled with oil, became a permanent installation at the Saatchi Gallery’s Boundary Road venue. September 1991 – February 1992 hosted a group show featuring several artists, the most prominent of which was controversial American photographer Andreas Serrano.
In March – October 1992, the YBA artists were first shown at the Boundary Road Gallery in an exhibition titled Young British Artists. This show included artists such as Damien Hirst, and Rachel Whiteread and began a series of shows that gave the group the title “YBA’s” by which they are still labelled. This exhibition sparked mass public interest and critical controversy when it debuted Hirst’s ''The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living'', a 17 foot long tiger shark corpse floating in a tank of formaldehyde, a piece which was commissioned by Charles Saatchi in 1991.
The exhibited Rachel Whiteread works included Ghost, a sculptural cast of a room in a house, described by critic Richard Cork as “the masterpiece of the exhibition.”[1] Some of the headlines that ran during this show included: The Sun’s story titled "£50,000 for fish without chips."[2] and The Daily Mail’s “Is there something rotten in the world of art?”[3] In October – December 1992 the gallery hosted a group show titled, Out of Africa: Contemporary African artists from the Pigozzi Collection.
February – July 1993 mounted Young British Artists ll, including YBA artists Sarah Lucas, Marc Quinn, and Mark Wallinger.
In September – December 1993 the gallery began its first of several collaborations with the Royal Academy, hosting the show American Art in the 20th Century, presented by The Royal Academy of Arts, London.
Future YBA shows introduced the work of Jenny Saville, commissioned from her art school degree show by Saatchi to produce an exhibition, and other YBA’s exhibited included Marcus Harvey, Gavin Turk, Glenn Brown and Gary Hume.
November 1994- February 1995 the gallery held an exhibition of painting, featuring Portuguese-born painter Paula Rego.
In January – May 1996 the gallery exhibited the first of its Young Americans shows, featuring artists such as: process artist Janine Antoni, video and installation artist Tony Oursler, painter and photographer Richard Prince, sculptor Charles Ray, feminist artist Kiki Smith, and painter Sean Landers; all of whom have since become international stars.
In September 1997 – January 1998 the Saatchi Gallery mounted the Sensation exhibition at The Royal Academy in London. Please see section below on YBA and Sensation for detailed information. Meanwhile other shows with different themes were held in the gallery itself, including Duane Hanson and Young Germans. This show included works by photographer Andreas Gursky, sculptor Martin Honert, photographer Thomas Ruff, and sculptors Thomas Schutte and Thomas Grunfeld.
From January – April 1998 the gallery showcased a retrospective of Alex Katz: Twenty Five Years of Painting. Followed in April – November 1998 by Young Americans which introduced John Currin, Terry Winters, Tom Friedman, Elizabeth Peyton, Lisa Yuskavage and Carroll Dunham to the UK who have all since achieved International acclaim.
These exhibitions were followed by a two part show titled Neurotic Realism in 1999 which featured a new generation of 33 young British-based artists. This exhibition showcased works by artists such as Ron Mueck, Tim Noble and Sue Webster, Cecily Brown, Dexter Dalwood, Peter Davies, Chantal Joffe, Martin Maloney, Michael Raedecker and David Thorpe. Though widely attacked by critics, this exhibition was viewed by many in the press as a challenge to the recent success of the YBA group, and reviews often drew disparaging comparison to the Sensation exhibition with the expectation that New Neurotic Realism show should signify new YBA-style movement rather than exist as a survey exhibition of new talent. Artforum critic James Hall wrote: “The first "Neurotic Realism" show looks like a melange of strangers rather than a gathering of soul mates… It's neo-Pop versus neo-arte povera. The new neuroses seem to have given this exhibition a split personality.”[4] However the exhibition included many artists who were later recognised as international stars.
January – April 2000 saw an exhibition of young European artists titled Eurovision, which featured German photographer Thomas Demand, Dutch photographer Rineke Dijkstra, and Swiss artist Ugo Rondinone.
In 2000 the Saatchi Gallery mounted an exhibition entitled Ant Noises (an anagram of “sensation”), which tried surer ground featuring new work by Hirst, Lucas, Saville, Whiteread, the Chapmans, Turk, Emin, Chris Ofili, Gary Hume and Ron Mueck.
In January – April 2001 the I Am A Camera exhibition opened at the Gallery, an exhibition of photography and other related works where traditional boundaries were blurred as photographs influenced paintings, and paintings influenced photographs. The show included work by many artists who had never exhibited before in the UK, such as American photographer Nan Goldin and Japanese photographer Hiroshi Sugimoto. The show also featured work by photographer Jessica Craig-Martin and YBA Richard Billingham, and highlighted a series of photographs by American pop artist Andy Warhol.
In May – August 2001, the Saatchi Gallery presented a group show titled New Labour, which featured many young artists who engaged in intensively laborious processes to create their work. The New Labour show included artists such as Grayson Perry, and Rebecca Warren who have since gone on to achieve international favour.
In September – November 2001, the gallery mounted its final show at Boundary Road, a solo exhibition of Ukrainian photographer Boris Mikhailov.
In preparation for the gallery’s move to the larger and more publicly accessible gallery space at County Hall, London which opened in 2003, the Saatchi Gallery sponsored an off-site project space in Underwood Street in London’s East End. Please see section below for further information.
YBA and Sensation
In an abrupt move, Saatchi sold much of his collection of US art, and invested in a new generation of British artists, exhibiting them in shows with his own title Young British Artists (YBAs). Some of the artists had been brought together by Damien Hirst in 1988 in a seminal show called Freeze. Saatchi augmented this with his own choice of purchases from art colleges and "alternative" artist-run spaces in London. His first showing of the YBAs was in 1992, where the star exhibit was a vitrine by Hirst containing a shark in formaldehyde and entitled The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living. This was funded by Saatchi. It has become the iconic work of British art in the 1990s,[5] and the symbol of Britart worldwide.[6]
More recently Saatchi has said of Freeze, "It’s not that Freeze, the 1988 exhibition that Damien Hirst organised with this fellow Goldsmiths College students, was particularly good. Much of the art was fairly so-so and Hirst himself hadn’t made anything much just a cluster of small colourful cardboard boxes placed high on a wall. What really stood out was the hopeful swagger of it all." Inspired by the energy and attitude of these artists, Saatchi began collecting and exhibiting their work and became instrumental in providing a contextual framework for the group.
Saatchi's promotion of these artists dominated UK art throughout the nineties and brought them to worldwide notice. Among the artists in the groundbreaking series of shows were Jenny Saville, Sarah Lucas, Gavin Turk, Jake and Dinos Chapman and Rachel Whiteread. (Tracey Emin was initially hostile to Saatchi and was only finally included in the 1997 Sensation show. They are now good friends.[7])
In 1992, the Saatchi Gallery curated its first in a series of shows entitled Young British Artists introducing the term “YBA” for this generation of artists. Though YBA artists are not linked stylistically, their work is defined by a shift in attitude and conceptual approach to making. The work of the YBAs was informed equally by traditional formal concerns as well as elements of popular and working-class British culture. Their work marks a radical shift away from the predominant intellectual art of the 1980s and engages with ideas and materials that identify with the concerns of ordinary people.
Sensation was a large survey exhibition of these YBA artists – many of whom had previously been shown at the Saatchi Gallery from 1992-1996 – that opened in September 1997 at the Royal Academy in London to much controversy and showed 110 works by 42 artists from the Saatchi Gallery's collection. Sensation attracted over 300 000 visitors[8], a record breaking attendance for a contemporary art exhibition.
The features of the exhibition are included below:
Darren Almond’s 1997 installation of an oversized clock.
Richard Billingham’s Untitled, 1993-1995, a series of enlarged snapshot photographs of his family.
Glenn Brown’s Dali-Christ, 1992; and Ornamental Despair (Painting for Ian Curtis) 1994 all of which are photo-realist paintings of mass produced reproductions of a Salvador Dali surrealist painting, and a Chris Foss science fiction illustration.
Jake and Dinos Chapman’s Great Deeds Against The Dead, 1994, a life size sculptural reproduction of Goya’s 1810 etching of the same title; Ubermensch, 1995, a life sized sculpture of wheelchair-bound physicist Stephen Hawking teetering on the edge of cliff; Zygotic acceleration, biogenetic, de-sublimated libidinal model, 1995, a life-sized sculpture of a group of naked children posed in conjoined formation with genitals on their faces; and Tragic Anatomies,1996, an installation of an artificial garden populated by mutant and sexualized children.
Mat Collishaw’s Bullet Hole, 1988-93, a blown up and fragmented photograph of a bullet wound to a head.
Tracey Emin’s Everyone I Have Ever Slept With 1963-1995, a piece popularly known as ‘The Tent’, where Emin embroidered the name of every person she’d every slept with – both sexually and platonically – on the inside of a tent.
Marcus Harvey’s Myra, 1995, a 4 meter tall painting of Moors Murders serial killer Myra Hindley made from children’s hand prints; and two paintings from Harvey’s Readers' Wives series, which are paintings inspired by blue magazine reader’s home-made pornographic photos. This piece caused scandal when exhibited in London and was defaced by protestors; the damage however was not permanent.
Mona Hatoum’s Deep Throat, 1996, an installation of a set dinner table with a film projected on the plate. The film shows an inner journey through the artist’s body as captured by a medical probe camera. Hatoum was nominated for the Turner Prize in 1995.
Damien Hirst’s The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living, 1991; Argininoscuccinic Acid, 1995, an abstract a painting of dots referencing pharmaceutical pills; One Thousand Years, 1999, a large glass container showcasing the life cycle of flies; I Want You Because I Can’t Have You,1991, a wall-mounted installation of formaldehyde-preserved fish in glass boxes; Some Comfort Gained From The Acceptance Of The Inherent Lies in Everything, 1996, an installation of a dissected cow housed in 12 glass containers. Away From The Flock 1994, a glass vitrine containing one sheep; This Little Piggy Went To Market This Little Piggy Stayed Home, 1996, a mechanical sculpture made from 2 glass vitrines, each containing half of a pig dissected length ways. The cases are mounted on a conveyor mechanism which causes the two pig-halves to pass each other in constant motion; and a 1996 ‘spin painting’, a large circular abstract painting which was made by throwing paint at the canvas while it was mounted to a high speed propeller.
Gary Hume’s Begging For it, 1994, a painting of a person praying, done in green, blue and black paint; Four Doors, 1991, a 6.43 meter long minimalist inspired painting of four doors, executed in yellow, black, grey, red, and green; Tony Blackburn, 1994, and abstracted painting of a clover; Vicious, 1994, a painting of brown figure set against a floral backdrop; My Aunt and I Agree, 1995, a predominantly purple painting of fingers, posed against a sexually suggestive background.
Michael Landy’s Flower Stand, 1997. An installation of an actual flower-seller’s market stall.
Sarah Lucas’s Au Naturel, 1994, an assemblage of a mattress, fruits and vegetables, and a bucket, suggesting the image of a couple lying in bed; Two Fried Eggs and A Kebab, an assemblage made from a table and food, suggesting the image of a naked woman; Figleaf in the Ointment, 1991, a series of small sculptures from 1994-1995, which were cast from the artist’s body and clothing; Sod You Gits, 1990, a large reproduction from the Sunday Sport newspaper (November 11, 1990) of a feature story about a midget sex fiend; and Bunny, 1997, a sculpture made from stuffed panty hose and a chair, suggesting the figure of a woman.
Martin Maloney’s Sony Levi, 1997, a figurative painting incorporating details from contemporary life.
Ron Mueck’s Dead Dad, 1996-1997, a miniature hyper-realist sculpture of a naked dead man.
Chris Ofili’s Spaceshit, 1995, Afrodizzia, 1996, Popcorn Tits, 1996, Afrobluff, 1996, all are decoratively ornate paintings incorporating collaged elements of magazine clippings and elephant dung; Virgin Mary, 1996, is a portrait of the Christian Madonna, picturing her as a black woman, adorned with images taken from pornographic magazines and elephant dung. Virgin Mary caused a scandal when exhibited in New York, and was vandalised by protestors. The damage however, wasn’t permanent. Chris Ofili won the Turner Prize in 1998.
Simon Patterson’s The Great Bear, 1992, a reproduction of the London Underground Map substituting station and line names with the names of philosophers, actors, and other well-known cultural figures. Simon Patterson was nominated for the Turner Prize in 1996.
Marc Quinn’s Self, 1991, a sculptural bust of the artist’s head, cast in his own frozen blood; a 1996 sculptural self portrait of the artist pictured as if melting into liquid, made from silver and glass; No Visible Means of Escape, 1996, a body cast of the artist made from a silicon rubber, suspended from the ceiling like a flayed skin.
Jenny Saville’s Propped, 1992, a portrait of a rotund woman, inscribed with text; Spur, 1993-1994, Plan 1993, Hybrid, 1997, Shift, 1996-1997, all paintings of overweight nude women.
Yinka Shonibare’s How Does a Girl Like You, Get to be a Girl Like You?, 1995, an installation of headless figures in Victorian dress made from African fabrics. Shonibare was nominated for the Turner Prize in 2004.
Gavin Turk’s Pop, 1993, a life-sized wax-work replica of the artist dressed and posed as Sid Vicious.
Mark Wallinger’s Angel, a video installation made in 1997; and Race, Class, Sex, a series of paintings of horses. Wallinger won the Turner Prize in 2007.
Gillian Wearing’s 10-16, a video projection shot in 1997. Wearing won the Turner Prize in 1997.
Rachel Whiteread’s Untitled (Bad) and Untitled (Bad in Orange), 1990, sculptural casts of the underside of a bath tub; Ghost, 1990, a life-sized sculptural cast of the inside of a room; Untitled, 1990, a sculptural cast of the underside of a sink; Untitled, 1995, a large installation of coloured resin cubes which were cast from the undersides of chairs. Whiteread won the Turner Prize in 1993.
The exhibition was accompanied by a catalogue, published by Thames and Hudson.
The London exhibition of Sensation garnered a tremendous amount of media interest from both the popular and specialist art press. The vandalism of Marcus Harvey’s Myra painting made several newspaper front pages, though many other aspects of the show captured the public interest and imagination.
Reviews of the show were varied, and illustrate a convergence between the artistic views held by the British people and the concerns of the cultural elite: both specialist art press and popular journalists focused on the show’s element of ‘shock’:
Specialist Art Press: David Cohen, writing for Artnet said: “Hot stuff. But the central quality of this Brit Pop art -- or of the YBAs, as the generation of late '80s neo-conceptualists who have stolen the scene in London are now officially to be called -- is coolness. Abjection on ice. Whether its art about art, or art that goes for the jugular on issues of sex or death, the defining features of this cool-school are its nihilism, nonchalance and impersonality.”[9]
Norman Rosenthal compared the artists in the exhibition to Manet, a controversial artist of the 19th century: “Presented with both seriousness and humour (often black), and in an extraordinary diversity of materials and approaches, these works serve as memorable metaphors for many problems of our times, some of which are shocking.”[10]
Kitty Hauser said in the New Left Review: “The shark, it seems, has been domesticated. Stamped with the approval of the Establishment (it’s art!) and honoured by record numbers of exhibition visitors (it’s popular!), it can now triumphantly slink back to the Saatchi archives as representative of a new(ish) kind of art; an art which is unashamedly commercial, media-friendly, pleasurable and which boasts a wide audience.”[11]
In Third Text Julian Stallabrass said: “…in the Royal Academy’s halls, with the tendency’s induction to the high art establishment, it all began to seem the same. In this homogenizing mainstream view, the art becomes best know for being (somewhat) notorious; the feature articles…in the Evening Standard purvey the same standard hype… And it must be taken seriously as it is now the dominant view.”[12]
Popular Press: The Sun newspaper ran the July 26 1997 headline “It’s An Artrage!: Toddler’s handprints used in portrait of evil Myra at posh gallery.”[13]
The Sunday Times critic Waldemar Januszczak, on September 12 1997, wrote: “Finally seeing the controversial work at the Royal Academy confounds expectation and confirms the strength of British art.”[14]
The Daily Mail called it the “Royal Academy of Porn” in their September 16 1997 front page, and commented “This show is no kind of sensation at all, merely the predictable, distasteful offerings of the new establishment that runs British Art.”[15]
Evening Standard art critic Brian Sewell, on September 18 1997 described the show as “Inflated playthings for the shallow mind.”[16]
In 1999 Sensation toured to The National Galerie at the Hamburger Bahnhof in Berlin in the autumn, and then to the Brooklyn Museum of Art, New York, creating unprecedented political and media controversy and becoming a touchstone for debate about the “morality” of contemporary art. The exhibition broke attendance records at both venues, and became the main front page stories in the New York press for several days.
The German exhibition of Sensation was accompanied by a catalogue published by the Nationalgalerie im Hamburger Bahnhof, with the original texts translated into German. Unlike at other venues, the show was met with little controversy in Germany.
Saatchi Gifts
Between 1999 and 2002, The Saatchi Gallery made several large philanthropic donations including 100 artworks in 1999 to the Arts Council of Great Britain Collection, which operates a ‘lending library’ to museums and galleries around Britain, with the aim of increasing awareness and promoting interest in younger artists; 40 works by young British artists through the National Arts Collection Fund, now known as The Art Fund, to eight museum collections across Britain in 2000; and 50 artworks to the Paintings in Hospitals programme which provides a lending library of over 3000 original works of art to NHS hospitals, hospices and health centres throughout England, Wales and Ireland in 2002.The gifts included important works by Julian Opie, Glenn Brown, Richard Billingham, Martin Creed, Jane Simpson, Richard Wilson, Langlands and Bell, Mark Francis, Alex Hartley, John Isaacs, Abigail Lane, Chantal Joffe, Keith Coventry and other leading young British artists.
Underwood Street Project Space
The Underwood Street project space was a small off-site venue sponsored by the Saatchi Gallery between 2001 and 2003 to coincide with the Boundary Road closure and reopening at County Hall. This space was in a warehouse building in London’s East End, the centre of art activity in London, located near Old Street and Shoreditch, an area notable for its many artists’ studios and upstart gallery spaces. The building itself was long associated with the London-based artist collective Bank and housed many artists’ studios. Inspired by the energy of this area and the young artists active there, the Underwood Street project space primarily showcased very young artists, many who have gone on to have successful careers.
The project space opened in June – July 2001 with a show of new graduate work titled Saatchi Gallery Bursaries 1999-2001. Saatchi Bursaries was an educational programme run by the Saatchi Gallery, awarding London art school students in their final year of study with financial assistance to help establish themselves upon graduation. Winners of this award included Diann Bauer, Stuart Cumberland, Declan Clark, and Paul McDevitt; 9 young artist were featured in this exhibition.
This was followed in September – December 2001 by a solo exhibition of young German painter Sophie Von Hellerman.
January – February 2002 featured an exhibition of the artworks donated to the Paintings in Hospitals programme; March – April 2002 a solo exhibition by painter Martin McGinn.
In May – June 2002 a group show titled Landscape featured Glenn Brown, Dexter Dalwood, Carroll Dunham, Tracey Emin, Craigie Horsfield, Richard Patterson, David Salle and Hannah Starkey.
The project space was closed in the summer of 2002 in preparation for the opening of the new County Hall venue.
County Hall
In April 2003, the gallery moved to County Hall, the Greater London Council's former headquarters on the South Bank, occupying 40,000 ft² (3,700 m²) of the ground floor. There were 1,000 guests at the launch, which included a "nude happening" of 200 naked people staged by artist Spencer Tunick.
The opening exhibition included a retrospective by Damien Hirst, as well as work by other YBAs, such as Jake and Dinos Chapman and Tracey Emin alongside some longer established artists including John Bratby, Paula Rego and Patrick Caulfield.
The gallery was not widely popular with the art establishment who much preferred the Saatchi Gallery’s previous location in Boundary Road. The County Hall space, a sprawling former political office, posed an exciting though unorthodox and challenging venue for viewing contemporary art, with its heritage listed historical architecture and complex layout of one large reception gallery (the Dining Hall), an impressively domed main gallery (the Rotunda), and many smaller galleries lining vast corridors, including the larger Boiler Room gallery. Consequently exhibitions for this period often overlapped, with several shows happening simultaneously. The gallery was divided into two main exhibition features: the primary exhibition and the Boiler room, a gallery devoted exclusively to showing young and upcoming artists. At most times there were many other artworks on display that were not part of the listed exhibitions, allowing viewers unprecedented access to the scope and variety of the Saatchi Gallery’s collection. As with the Boundary Road gallery, Richard Wilson's 20:50 was featured as a permanent installation.
The gallery re-opened in 2003 with a large exhibition of Damian Hirst, there was a central feature of the large domed gallery which showcased his work amongst other Sensation contemporaries such as Jake and Dinos Chapman, Tracey Emin, Chris Ofili, Marcus Harvey, Sarah Lucas, and Ron Mueck. The opening exhibition also included work by more senior UK artists such as John Bratby, Paula Rego and Patrick Caulfield in the smaller galleries.
This was followed by a large exhibition of Jake and Dinos Chapman works, accompanied by works by Duane Hanson, Paula Rego, Cecily Brown, Peter Doig, and Ashley Bickerton; and Tracey Emin, Damien Hirst, Sarah Lucas, Ron Mueck, Chris Ofili and Rebecca Warren.
In 2005, Saatchi surprised many with the announcement of a year-long, three-part series The Triumph of Painting. The opening exhibition in The Triumph of Painting series was the Saatchi Gallery’s 20th anniversary show and ran from January 26th - July 3rd 2005 with the second part running from July 5th - Oct 30th 2005.
An accompanying catalogue was published by Jonathan Cape on 6 January 2005 and further catalogues were also published, one featuring essays by Alison M. Gingeras focuses on Albert Oehlen, Thomas Scheibitz, Wilhelm Sasnal, Kai Althoff, Dirk Skreber and Franz Ackermann, the other with an essay by Meghan Dailey focuses on Matthias Weischer, Eberhard Havekost, Dexter Dalwood, Dana Schutz, Michael Raedecker, and Inka Essenhigh. The shows focused on a number of already established European painters and American artists who had not previously received such significant exposure in the UK: Peter Doig, Luc Tuymans, Martin Kippenberger, Marlene Dumas, Matthias Weischer, Eberhard Havekost, Cecily Brown, Franz Ackermann, Dirk Skreber, Kai Althoff, Wilhelm Sasnal, Thomas Scheibitz, Albert Oehlen, Hermann Nitsch and Jorg Immendorff.
Reviews of Part I included: The Guardian critic Jonathan Jones rated this exhibition as 5 star, saying “Charles Saatchi offers an exhibition whose argument - that painting rocks - we can all get behind, and whose stars Marlene Dumas and Luc Tuymans are very much on the Tate Modern menu. But Saatchi's feel for painting reveals itself as saltier and less fashion-bound than the Tate mainstream… the meat of this show is an expressive selection of painting from Germany.”[17]
Critic Craig Garrett, writing for Flash Art, said: “Part One is somewhat lumpy and precarious. Part of the problem may be Saatchi's fondness for artists who fly in the face of institutional approval. His gallery's history is studded with large payoffs against long odds. To stand in front of the nine Immendorff canvases in Part One is to realize that if Saatchi had instead devoted the exhibition solely to artists like Tuymans, Kippenberger and Dumas, to whom the years have been kinder, he would have had a much more persuasive case.”[18]
Triumph of Painting II featured six contemporary German painters of international reputation: Dirk Skreber, Albert Oehlen, Thomas Scheibitz, Franz Ackermann, Kai Althoff, Matthias Weischer, and Polish painter Wilhelm Sasnal, also well known.
Part 2 reviews included: Writing for the BBC website on July 8 2005, critic Gemma DeCruz said: “Having evicted the YBA circus which has dominated the gallery since its relocation in 2003, Charles Saatchi has returned to putting on landmark exhibitions showcasing international contemporary art.”[19]
Svetlana Alpers said of the show in Artforum September 2005: “It made one think of painting itself as having a life, as being like a living organism: individual works, but also more generally artists' performances in the medium, can wax and wane. On balance, I think 'survival' rather that 'triumph' is the appropriate word.”[20]
Daily Telegraph critic Richard Dorment said of this show: “I don't expect to like all the artists Charles Saatchi comes up with. But here he has introduced me to six of whom I'd like to see four again, and two I think first rate. Not bad at all.”[21] Writing for the July 17 2005 Sunday Telegraph, critic Ben Lewis said: “Saatchi’s first eclectic show combined the predictable giants of the 1990s – Martin Kippenberger, Marlene Dumas and Luc Tuymans – with the 20th century’s worst artist – Hermann Nitsch. This new show introduces the British public to some of the important new generation of 21st century painters – some of which Britain’s museums should have introduced us to long ago.” [22]
In 2006 a selection from The Triumph of Painting was exhibited in Leeds Art Gallery.
After an unhappy stay at County Hall (see controversy below), the Saatchi Gallery announced it was moving to a new location at the Duke of York’s HQ building in Chelsea.
The gallery received 600,000 visitors a year. In 2006, 1,350 schools organised group visits to the gallery.
USA Today
In 1996, the Saatchi Gallery once again collaborated with the Royal Academy to use venue for an exhibition of young American artists. This exhibition toured to The State Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg, Russia in 2007.
USA Today: New American Art from the Saatchi Gallery featured the artists Ellen Altfest, Kristin Baker, Jules de Balincourt, Huma Bhabha, Mark Bradford, Matthew Brannon, Carter, Mathew Cerletty, Dan Colen, Adam Cvijanovic, Gerald Davis, Inka Essenhigh, Brian Fahlstrom, Barnaby Furnas, Luis Gispert, Mark Grotjahn, Marc Handelman, Daniel Hesidence, Elliott Hundley, Matthew Day Jackson, Terence Koh, Douglas Kolk, Florian Maier-Aichen, Ryan McGinness, Rodney McMillian, Josephine Meckseper, Aleksandra Mir, Matthew Monahan, Wangechi Mutu, Jon Pylypchuk, Christoph Schmidberger, Lara Schnitger, Dana Schutz, Josh Smith, Dash Snow, Erick Swenson, Ryan Trecartin, Banks Violette, Kelley Walker and Dan Walsh and was accompanied by a full-colour catalogue published by the Royal Academy.
Critics gave the show mixed reviews:
Morgan Falconer said in The Times, 04 October 2006, “there is much here that is full-blooded, articulate and eloquently angry.”[23]
Jackie Wullschlager in The Financial Times, October 6 2006: “following recent lacklustre European painting shows at Saatchi's former County Hall gallery, USA Today is fresh, frenetic and fun. In America, a society intoxicated with newness since its self-invention as the New World, Saatchi the obsessive amasser of novelties has found his feet again as a collector”,[24]
On October 10 2006, Richard Dorment in The Daily Telegraph said “sprawling, wildly uneven, and highly enjoyable”,[25]
Fisun Guner in The Metro, October 10 2006: “in an exhibition as big and baggy as this one, there'll be a fair share of the forgettable and the banal - indeed, some of the paintings are a bit ropey. But sometimes the bulk pick'n'mix approach can create a tremendous energy”[26]
On 12 October 2006 Francesca Gavin wrote for the BBC website “one of the most vibrant exhibitions of contemporary art that has graced British shores for a long time... as ever there's a dud room or two... however, if you want a dose of contemporary art that's an animated contrast to the Turner Prize, then come here”.[27]
Duke of York's HQ
On 9 October 2008 the gallery opened its new premises, one of "the most beautiful art spaces in London",[28] in the 70,000-square-foot (6,500 m2) Duke of York's HQ on Kings Road, London, near to Sloane Square. The building was refurbished by architects Paul Davis + Partners and Allford Hall Monaghan Morris. It consists of 15 equally-proportioned exhibition spaces "as light, as high, and as beautifully proportioned as any in London".[29] Evening Standard critic Brian Sewell described the new gallery as the “nicest exhibition space in London, infinitely better than Tate Modern.”[30]
The gallery is the only completely free-entry contemporary art museum of its size in the world.[31] Free entry is enabled by the gallery's partnership with contemporary art auction house Phillips de Pury & Company.
Sponsors Phillips de Pury & Company have their own room in the gallery to display "art environments", the first of which showcased new pieces by Julian Schnabel. The Saatchi Gallery Project Room exhibits work by an artist in the collection independent of the main gallery show; the first selection was Newsroom Cops and Teens, 21 drawings by Aleksandra Mir inspired by tabloids from New York.
The gallery includes a dedicated space for Saatchi Online artists (which anyone is free to join), chosen by voting and critics, to exhibit and sell their work commission-free, and a gallery for schools to exhibit their students work. The gallery is expanding its education programme, with a classroom for visiting school and colleges students, as well as providing online resources.
The show which opened the gallery was The Revolution Continues: New Art From China, bringing together the work of twenty-four of China’s young artists in a survey of painting, sculpture and installation. Artists in the exhibition were Zhang Dali, Zeng Fanzhi, Wang Guangyi, Zheng Guogu, Zhang Haiying, Zhang Hongtu, Qiu Jie, Xiang Jing, Shi Jinsong, Fang Lijun, Yue Minjun, Li Qing, Zhang Yuan, Yin Zhaohui, Feng Zhengjie, Wu Shanzhuan, Shen Shaomin, Cang Xin, Shi Xinning, Li Yan, Bai Yiluo, Zhan Wang, Liu Wei, Zhang Xiaotao, Zhang Huan, Li Songsong, Zhang Xiaogang, Zhang Haiying and conceptual artists Sun Yuan & Peng Yu.
An accompanying book included an essay by Jiang Jiehong, director of the Centre for Chinese Visual Arts at the UCE Birmingham Institute of Art and Design.
For Saatchi’s detractors, the show exemplified Saatchi's predeliction for the "rude, sensational and epigrammatic", including a "big fairground attraction" of thirteen realistic life-size figures of world leaders colliding with each other in moving electric wheelchairs, as described by Laura Cumming of The Observer.[32]
Much work in the show relates to political issues surrounding China's Cultural Revolution and also to the wider contemporary political context.[33][34] The decision to open with The Revolution Continues was directly influenced by global interest in China as a result of the 2008 Beijing Olympics.[35] Also in October 2008, the Saatchi Gallery showed a selection of its Chinese art collection as part of the Museum Presents series at SCOPE Art Fair in London.
Critical response to the exhibition: Stephen Adams said in the Oct 6 2008 The Telegraph: “The exhibition examines issues such as the changing nature of Chinese society, the legacy of Chairman Mao, and the country's relations with the West… Chinese artists are increasingly tackling politically sensitive issues that others in the country fear to discuss.”[36]
Martin Gayford, writing for the Bloomsburg Muse Oct 6 2008 said: “It is a triumph, architecturally at least. The first exhibition, ``The Revolution Continues: New Art from China is exactly what we have come to expect from Saatchi shows. How much you like it will depend on your taste for bold imagery and old- fashioned figurative painting.”[37]
Adrian Searle, one of Saatchi’s frequent detractors, in The Guardian October 7 2008 called the premises "a study in blandness. If not for the art, we might be at a King's Road corporate wellness retreat", and the exhibition "a tiresome kind of entertainment" with work that "says familiar, Saatchi-type things. A giant turd coils on the floor, packed with semi-digested toy soldiers."[38]
On 9th October 2008, tabloid Daily Mail correspondent Quentin Letts described the show: “No one seems to smile — no one, that is, except that vicious dictator Chairman Mao, whose image keeps cropping up in weak examples of satire. The message is depressingly anti-individual. Perhaps that is because China is a country psychologically damaged by years of communism… The paradox is that this rank, degrading art is being aimed at some of the most privileged, gilded youths of the Western world.”[39]
Jackie Wullschlager in the Financial Times said it was "the most persuasive showing of contemporary Chinese art yet mounted in this country," and, contrasting it with the "deadly" contemporaneous Turner Prize show, "Saatchi's collection of Chinese art is one that Tate would kill for, and could not begin to afford"; she said that it was "an example of a private museum grand and serious enough to compete with national institutions."[40]
Dylan Jones, in the 18 October 2008 The Independent said: “Critics have been snitty about the collection – but I'd say their displeasure is largely the result of jealousy. The Revolution Continues: New Art from China is not only the most comprehensive exhibition of contemporary Chinese art ever shown in the capital, it is also a wonderful example of Saatchi's populist streak.”[41]
Future Projects
Planned shows as of October 2008 are Unveiled: New Art From the Middle East, featuring work by Diana Al-Hadid, Tala Madani, Ahmed Alsoudani, Ramin Haerizadeh, Jeffar Khaldi, Laleh Khorramian, Farsad Labbauf, Ahmad Morshedloo, Sara Rahbar, Marwan Rechmaoui, Kader Attia, Nadia Ayari, Ali Banisadr, Ahmed Alsoudani and Rokni Haerizadeh[42];
This will be followed by an international sculpture survey called Shape of Things To Come: New Sculpture which will focus on European and American sculptors Kader Attia, Dan Attoe, David Batchelor, Huma Bhabha, Karla Black, Alina & Jeff Bliumis, Sarah Braman, Bozidar Brazda, Olaf Breuning, Peter Buggenhout, Tom Burr, Jedediah Caesar, Peter Coffin, Dan Colen, Berlinde de Bruyckere, Folkert de Jong, Guerra de la Paz, Michael DeLucia, Daphne Fitzpatrick, Rachel Harrison, David Herbert, Patrick Hill, Christian Holstad, Thomas Houseago, Jessica J. Hutchins, Ryan Johnson, Matt Johnson, Jacob Dahl Jurgensen, Alice Könitz, Ian Kiaer, Terence Koh, Molly Larkey, Paul Lee, Nathan Mabry, Jorge Mayet, Josephine Meckseper, Matthew Monahan, William J. O'Brien, Kaz Oshiro, Gosha Ostretsov, Jon Pylypchuk, Sean Raspet, Stephen G. Rhodes, Halsey Rodman, Florian Roithmayr, Sterling Ruby, Will Ryman, Lara Schnitger, Macrae Semans, Conrad Shawcross, Gedi Sibony, Tamuna Sirbiladaze, Allison Smith, Agathe Snow, Kirsten Stoltmann, Erick Swenson, Mateo Tannatt, Stephanie Taylor, Andy Yoder, Ryan Trecartin, Nobuko Tsuchiya, Francis Upritchard, Banks Violette, Rebecca Warren and Andro Wekua.[43]Saatchi Gallery</ref>
Also planned is The Empire Strikes Back: New Indian Art Today, which will be the largest exhibition of contemporary Indian art exhibited in Britain to date.[citation needed] This show will feature artists Jaishri Abichandani, Kriti Arora, Shezad Dawood, Atul Dodiya, Chitra Ganesh, Probir Gupta, Tushar Joag, Reena Saini Kallat, Bharti Kher, Rajan Krishnan, Tallur L.N, Ali Mansoor, Pushpamala N, Yamini Nayar, Justin Ponmany, Rajesh Ram, Rashid Rana, TV Santhoshm, Schandra Singh, Hema Upadhyay, T Venkanna, Subodh Gupta, Jitish Kallat, and Huma Mulji.[44]
Newspeak: British Art Now will show Saatchi's choice of up and coming British talent: Tasha Amini, Helene Appel, Jonathan Baldock, Anna Barriball, Steve Bishop, Karla Black, Lyn, Yiadom Boakye, Pablo Bronstein, Carla Busuttil, Nick Byrne, Spartacus Chetwynd, Steven Claydon, William Daniels, Peter Davies, Robert Dowling, Graham Durward, Dick Evans, Tessa Farmer, Dee Ferris, Michael Fullerton, Jaime Gili, Anthea Hamilton, Iain Hetherington, Alexander Hoda, Sigrid Holmwood, Systems House, Graham Hudson, Dean Hughes, Mustafa Hulusi, Paul Johnson, Edward Kay, Scott King, Alastair MacKinven, Christina Mackie, Goshka Macuga, Jill Mason, Alan Michael, Ryan Mosley, Rupert Norfolk, Arif Ozakca, Dan Perfect, Peter Peri, Ged Quinn, Clunie Reid, Barry Reigate, A. Sanders-Dunnachie, Maaike Schoorel, Daniel Silver, Renee So, Fergal Stapleton, Caragh Thuring, Phoebe Unwin, Donald Urquhart, Jonathan Wateridge and Toby Ziegler.[45]
Upcoming shows scheduled to introduce Britain to young painters from America in Abstract America: New Painting from the US which will feature Kristin Baker, John Bauer, Dan Bayles, Mark Bradford, Joe Bradley, Matthew Brannon, Carter, Eric and Heather ChanSchatz, Andy Collins, Francesca DiMattio, Judith Eisler, Inka Essenhigh, Bart Exposito, Will Fowler, Dana Frankfort, Eric Freeman, Barnaby Furnas, Joanne Greenbaum, Mark Grotjahn, Marc Handelman, Jacob Hashimoto, Daniel Hesidence, Elliott Hundley, Douglas Kolk, Chris Martin, Ryan McGinness, Ivan Morley, Elizabeth Neel, Baker Overstreet, Michael Phelan, David Ratcliff, Scott Reeder, Ruth Root, Amanda Ross-Ho, Amy Sillman, Josh Smith, Marc Swanson, Dan Walsh, Garth Weiser, Aaron Wexler and Aaron Young.
New German art will be showcased in Germania: New Art From Germany featuring Markus Amm, Artists Anonymous, Michael Bauer, Dirk Bell, Alexandra Bircken, Andre Butzer, Bjorn Dahlem, Isa Genzken, Felix Gmelin, Kati Heck, Jeppe Hein, Thomas Helbig, Lothar Hempel, Martin Honert, Friedrich Kunath, Stefan Kürten, Johannes Kahrs, Jutta Koether, Ulrich Lamsfuss, Andrea Lehmann, Jonathan Meese, Anselm Reyle, Kirstine Roepstorff, Julian Rosefeldt, Christoph Ruckhäberle, Silke Schatz, Gert & Uwe Tobias, Corinne Wasmuht, Johannes Wohnseifer and Thomas Zipp.
Saatchi Education Programme
The Saatchi Gallery has a very active education program that aims to make the exhibitions at the gallery accessible and interesting to students of all ages. Group visits to the gallery are free with guided tours available on request.
The Saatchi Gallery is specifically geared towards introducing a younger audience of art students and enthusiasts to see work at the cutting edge of contemporary art. The facilities - at the Gallery, via the website, and the Gallery’s Classroom for Schools - will ensure that teachers receive the best on-site and outreach support for their students.
The gallery’s education room is a classroom space dedicated to learning and creativity. A selection of reading material related to the current gallery exhibition is available for students as well as catalogues from past gallery exhibitions. The room is also used for school talks and creative workshops. Here students can engage in discussion, learn about art, and even make their own art through gallery-run workshops. The education room can be booked by visiting the Saatchi Gallery website [46]
Education packs related to primary and secondary schools curriculums are created for each new gallery exhibition. These materials act as a catalog for students, identifying key works and explaining important themes and techniques related to the artworks. The Education Packs are available online and provide a useful guide about the key works and themes in the inaugural exhibition, The Revolution Continues: New Chinese Art.
The Saatchi Gallery will continue to give visitors the opportunity to experience artists' work which they would otherwise only see as reproductions in art magazines and text books.
Saatchi Online
In 2006, during the period in limbo between premises, the Saatchi Gallery website began an open-access section, [42] where artists can upload their works of art and a biography onto their own pages. Over 100,000 artists have done so, and the site receives an estimated 73 million hits a day. In October 2008, Alexa Internet recorded Saatchi Gallery at 242 in world’s top 50,000 sites.
In November 2007 it was estimated that the professional artists registered on the website sell over $100 million of art directly from the site annually.[47] In 2008 Saatchi Online launched a saleroom section that hosts over 90,000 entries from artists wishing to sell their work. The site takes no commission from either buyer or seller.
Online Gallery Categories
The categories in which artists can upload their materials are as follows:
Saatchi Online: Over 100,000 practicing artists are exhibited.
Saatchi Online Saleroom: Over 90000 artworks available for purchase free of any commission.
Saatchi Online Art Students (STUART): In November 2006 the Saatchi Gallery launched a new site within Saatchi Online exclusively for art students, called Stuart, which includes online chat rooms. Over 30,000 students from around the world use the site as a free space to show their work and make contact with other students. An annual competition exclusively for Stuart artists, 4 New Sensations, is run in collaboration with Channel 4 in the UK. (please see below for more information).
Saatchi Online Street Art: In the Street Art Section visitors can display and discuss graffiti, murals, street photography, performance and body art submitted from countries around the world. There are currently over 5500 images of contemporary street art in this section.
Saatchi Online Video Art: In the Video Art Section visitors can display and discuss video, film, and animation. Over 6,000 artists’ videos are currently online.
Saatchi Online Photography: Visitors can display and discuss photography. There are currently over 31,000 photographs on display.
Saatchi Online Illustration: Visitors can display and discuss illustration. There are currently over 9400 illustrations on display.
Users can search these galleries by artists name, alphabetical listing, or browse freely. The order in which artists appear on the site rotates randomly at regular intervals to ensure equal opportunities for exposure.
Activities on Saatchi Online
Chatroom: Users can chat live with other visitors and speak with guest artists hosting online discussions.
Forum: Users can participate in online debates on art and discussion of current trends, techniques, approaches and a vivid range of other topics.
Crits: Over 36,000 works are displayed for critiques from other artists on the site.[48]
Critic’s Choice: Each week, professional art critics are asked to make a selection of their Top Ten picks from the Online Galleries. These are published in Saatchi Online Magazine.[49]
Showdown Competition: The Showdown Competition is an ongoing weekly head-to-head competition open for all visitors to vote for their favourite works submitted by Saatchi Online artists, the winning works to be exhibited at the Saatchi Gallery. In the weekly Showdown competition, users can win a place in an exhibition in the Gallery and a cash prize – the winner of the final Showdown will be awarded £1000 and runner up will receive £750.[50] The first winning Showdown work by Vania Comoretti is currently on show at the Duke of York’s HQ alongside The Revolution Continues. The winner of the second competition was Erik Weiser, the third winner was Marco Huttmann.[51]
Saatchi Online Art Prize For Schools: Over 1500 schools from around the world display their pupils’ work on this online schools showcase, which is open to schools with pupils aged between 4 and 18. All work is entered into the Saatchi Gallery’s new Saatchi Online Art Prize for Schools. Selected works entered into the new Saatchi Online Art Prize for Schools will be exhibited in the new Gallery and the final 3 winners chosen by guest art critics to receive the awards totaling £24,000 for the top three art departments and winning pupils. A first prize of £10,000 will be awarded to the winning school’s art department. A further £2000 will be given to the winning pupil to be spent on computer and art equipment. There will be two runner-up prizes of £5000 each awarded to the second and third place schools with a further £1000 to each of the winning pupils. Different schools are invited to display work by their pupils in the Saatchi Gallery throughout the year.[53] Schools involved range from small Primary and High schools around the world.[52]
4 New Sensations: An annual competition, 4 New Sensations, in association with Channel 4, is run via the Stuart section of the site. 4 New Sensations was launched in 2007 and is open to all UK-based students graduating from BA or MA courses in the given year, 2 winners are ultimately chosen – one by the judges and one by the public via a vote on the Saatchi website. The 2007 winner was Sarah Marple.
In 2008, the following 20 artists were short listed: Laura Abbott (Goldsmiths College, London), Jonny Briggs (Chelsea College of Art & Design, London), Asiya Clarke (Goldsmiths College, London), Julia Dias (Glasgow School of Art), Aidan Doherty (Wimbledon College of Art, London), William Syrus Gharraie (Newcastle University), Dominigue Hill (University of Reading), Matthew Robert Hughes (London College of Communication), Arthur Lanyon (Cardiff School of Art and Design), Adele Morse (University of East London), Ruth Murray (Royal College of Art, London), Matthew Musgrave (Chelsea College of Art & Design, London), Jamie Partridge (Wimbledon College of Art, London), Virginia Phongsathorn (Royal College of Art, London), Tom Pope (Swansea Metropolitan University), Laura Yuile (Glasgow School of Art) – including the 4 finalists Mark Davey, Amy Moffat, Rob Sherwood and Camilla Wills.
The selection panel was made up of the artist Yinka Shonibare, gallerist Maureen Paley, critic and broadcaster Matthew Collings and collector and Gallery One One One founder David Roberts.
Each finalist was given £1000 to fund new work to be shown alongside the rest of the shortlisted artists at the Truman Brewery, Brick Lane in London from 14-19 October 2008. The finalists also had a Channel 4 3 Minute Wonder film made about them which was broadcast on the television network and on Saatchi Online.
This competition is an annual event. The judges’ choice of winner receives £3000 and the public’s choice receives £1000.[46] Winners for 2008 were: Mark Davey and Robert Sherwood.[53]
Saatchi Online Studio: In the Online Studio Section artists are able to make art directly on the site using sophisticated image-making technology that offers the user a variety of colours, textures and virtual brushes. Each month a critic selects a winner in whose name a £500 donation is made to a children's hospital chosen by the winner. The September 2008 winner was Esther Yva from Bonn in Germany, as selected by Anthony Haden-Guest. Visitors to the site can create and save as many pictures as they like using their Saatchi Online username or anonymously.[54]
Artroom: There is a children’s equivalent to the Saatchi Online Studio known as the Saatchi Online Artroom.[55]
Saatchi Online Art Information
University and College Listings: This section lists curriculum details and information from over 2800 of the world’s top universities and colleges who have entered their profiles, and often contains links to degree shows from all over the world. These include Yale, Harvard, the University of Cambridge and the University of Oxford, as well as local art colleges.
Museum Listings: This section lists collection highlights and visitor information from over 2800 of the world’s leading museums who have entered their profiles. ‘’Museums around the World’’ displays over 3300 museums with exhibition details, highlights of their collections, and other relevant information. These include the Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Museum of Modern Art, the Tate, Musee d’Orsay, the British Museum, the London National Gallery, the Louvre, and the State Hermitage, as well as small museums.
Gallery Listings: Over 4,300 commercial galleries worldwide have entered their profiles to detail their exhibitions and display their artists’ work.
International Gallery Guides: Saatchi Online hosts detailed gallery guides containing up to date exhibition listings for over 32 countries and regions around the world. These guides give information about the art activities happening in each region, and links to further exhibition information and street maps.
Art Fair Listings: This section previews all the leading art fairs from around the world who have entered their profiles.
Funding Opportunities Listings: This section lists a wide variety of artists’ funding opportunities, grants and prizes from across the world.
Art & Music: The Saatchi Gallery magazine Art & Music is also published in digital version on Saatchi Online.
Saatchi Online allows any artist, gallery, institution, organisation or practitioner to post a link to their own website to give visitors to Saatchi Online access to other arts services on the internet.
Saatchi Online Magazine
A daily art magazine features 24 hour art news updated every 15 minutes, as well as articles and reviews by well known art critics from around the world. Reviews and essays can also be submitted by the site’s visitors. The magazine mixes commissioned content alongside reader-submitted material and is edited by Rebecca Wilson. London correspondents are Matthew Collings, Ana Finel Honigman and Rebecca Geldard, New York is covered by Jerry Saltz, Doug McClemont and Morgan Falconer, Los Angeles by Catherine Tuft, Berlin by Alix Rule and April Elizabeth Lamm, Paris by Steve Pullimood and Beijing/Shanghai by Stacey Duff and Chris Moore. The news editor is Anthony Haden-Guest.
The magazine features exhibition reviews and previews and critical essays, advice on art collecting, art party pictures, diaries and blogs from art professionals, information on new art, design and photography books, news on events and visits to studios. The site recently began broadcasting an online television channel – Saatchi Online TV - which gives visitors video access to art openings, artists' studios, performances and interviews. The channel mixes editorial features with user created content such as video diaries and blogs.[56]
Saatchi Online Events
In October 2006 the Saatchi Gallery in association with the Guardian newspaper opened the first ever reader-curated exhibition, showing the work of 10 artists registered on Saatchi Online; users also have the opportunity to be featured in the Saatchi Online stall at various art fairs where work is sold without commission, all proceeds going directly to the artist.
From 16-19 October 2008 Saatchi Online showcased the work of various UK-based Online artists at the SCOPE Art Fair at Lord’s Cricket Ground in London and hosted a panel discussion featuring Hans Ulrich Obrist, Joshua Jiang, Karen Smith and Amelie von Wedel as part of SCOPE’s Collector Series Lectures about the current state of contemporary Chinese art.[57]
The Saatchi Online artists featured at SCOPE London in 2008 were selected from the weekly Saatchi Online Magazine Critic's Choice and Top 10s and by Rebecca Wilson, Head of Development for Saatchi Online. The artists featured were GL Brierly, Petros Chrisostomou, Toby Christian, Pio Abad, Mark Harris, Rebecca Ayre, Michael Atkinson, Damien Flood, Aaron Schuman, Poppy Jones, Gabriele Beveridge, Philip Caramazza and Vicky Wright. The SCOPE London 2008 presence continued the trend set by previous appearances at Zoo Art Fair in London in October 2007, FORM London in February 2008, PULSE New York in March 2008 and SCOPE Basel 2008 in June 2008.[58] The gallery also participated in Concrete and Glass 2008.[59] 110 works have been sold on behalf of Saatchi Online artists at these fairs, with no commission charged to the artist or collector.
Saatchi Online Multi-Language
A Mandarin language version of the site allows Chinese artists to upload their profiles in Chinese and to be read in English. There is also a Chinese language chatroom, forum, and blog. The site provides automated translations in most of the world’s leading languages.
Art & Music Magazine
The Saatchi Gallery’s free magazine Art & Music was launched in March 2008. The publication was founded by Gemma de Cruz and David Sheppard who also comprise the editorial team.
The magazine is published quarterly in London and is available for free from 100 outlets throughout the city.
The magazine is also available to gallery visitors and the circulation has increased to 100,000.
The magazine focuses on contemporary art and the independent music scene, and where the 2 disciplines meet, through essays, interviews and articles on both emerging and established artists. The core group of writers includes Darren Hayman, Keiron Phelan, Iphgenia Baal and Helen Sumpter, art direction is by Alfonso Iacurci and the magazine is designed by Miscano Design, London.[60]
Art & Music is can also be read online through the Saatchi Gallery website.
Q & As with Charles Saatchi
Q&A with Charles Saatchi + The Art Newspaper: December 2004
The following interview with Charles Saatchi was given on the occasion of the Saatchi Gallery’s 20th anniversary and the installation of the first show in ‘’The Triumph of Painting’’ series.
AN: You have been described both as a 'supercollector' and as 'the most successful art dealer of our times'. Looking back on the past 20 years, how would you characterise your activities?
Charles Saatchi: Who cares what I'm described as? Art collectors are pretty insignificant in the scheme of things. What matters and survives is the art. I buy art that I like. I buy it to show it off in exhibitions. Then, if I feel like it, I sell it and buy more art. As I have been doing this for 30 years, I think most people in the art world get the idea by now. It doesn't mean I've changed my mind about the art that I end up selling. It just means that I don't want to hoard everything forever.
Your practice of buying emerging artists work has proved highly contagious and is arguably the single greatest influence on the current market because so many others, both veteran collectors and new investors, are following your lead, vying to snap up the work of young, relatively unknown, artists. Do you accept that you are responsible for much of the speculative nature of the contemporary art market?
CS: I hope so. Artists need a lot of collectors, all kinds of collectors, buying their art.
Do you think this speculation has inflated prices for contemporary art over the last decade? Do you expect the bubble to burst soon?
CS: Yes. No.
Do you feel a sense of personal responsibility towards the artists whose work you collect? Artists who benefited from your patronage in the late 70s and early 80s, such as Sean Scully and Sandro Chia, felt an acute sense of betrayal when you offloaded their work in bulk onto the market. In the case of Chia, you have been accused of having destroyed his career. Do you regret how you handled these artists' works?
CS: I don't buy art to ingratiate myself with artists, or as an entrée to a social circle. Of course, some artists get upset if you sell their work. But it doesn't help them whimpering about it, and telling anyone who will listen. Sandro Chia, for example, is most famous for being dumped. At last count I read that I had flooded the market with 23 of his paintings. In fact, I only ever owned seven paintings by Chia. One morning I offered three of them back to Angela Westwater, his New York dealer where I had originally bought them, and four back to Bruno Bischofberger his European dealer where, again, I had bought those. Chia's work was tremendously desirable at the time and all seven went to big-shot collectors or museums by close of day. If Sandro Chia hadn't had a psychological need to be rejected in public, this issue would never have been considered of much interest. If an artist is producing good work, someone selling a group of strong ones does an artist no harm at all, and in fact can stimulate their market.
What do you look for when buying a work of art?
CS: There are no rules I know of.
Whom, if anyone, do you listen to for advice when buying art?
CS: Nobody can give you advice after you've been collecting for a while. If you don't enjoy making your own decisions, you're never going to be much of a collector anyway. But that hasn't stopped the growing army of art advisers building "portfolio" collections for their clients.
When you express interest in an artist, the art world takes immediate notice. The result is a rise in prices. Do you ever try to buy works anonymously to prevent this from happening?
CS: No.
Are you ever concerned about your influence on taste, when it comes to contemporary British art? Does it worry you that your purchases (or sales) have an impact on the market? Or is this something you enjoy?
CS: I never think too much about the market. I don't mind paying three or four times the market value of a work that I really want. Just ask the auction houses. As far as taste is concerned, as I stated earlier, I primarily buy art in order to show it off. So it's important for me that the public respond to it and contemporary art in general.
Which do you enjoy more: the hunt involved in collecting or the pleasure of owning major works of art?
CS: Both are good.
How do you decide what to sell and when to sell it?
CS: There is no logic or pattern I can rely on. I don't have a romantic attachment to what could have been. If I had kept all the work I had ever bought it would feel like Kane sitting in Xanadu surrounded by his loot. It's enough to know that I have owned and shown so many masterpieces of modern times.
Do you believe in philanthropy? Do you believe that people who are rich and successful have a responsibility towards society?
CS: The rich will always be with us.
You are a generous lender to exhibitions. However, some of your donations to art schools and colleges are arguably just a way of purging your collection of second-rate art that will be hard to sell. Is this a fair judgement?
CS: The artists whose work I have given to the national collections probably wouldn't thank you for your judgement of their work. And, for example, a large four-panelled Glenn Brown work I gave to the Arts Council would be easy to sell, and for about $500,000. I obviously like the work I give away, otherwise I wouldn't have bought it. But would I be a nicer person if I gave away all the most popular works in my gallery?
What made you decide to open a gallery to the public? Did you feel it was some sort of public duty or were there more pragmatic reasons?
CS: I like to show off art I like.
Have you ever fallen in love with the work of an artist whose work was not sellable, for example, a performance artist or someone who creates massive public installations?
CS: Lots of ambitious work by young artists ends up in a dumpster after its warehouse debut. So an unknown artist's big glass vitrine holding a rotting cow's head covered by maggots and swarms of buzzing flies may be pretty unsellable. Until the artist becomes a star. Then he can sell anything he touches. But mostly, the answer is that installation art like Richard Wilson's oil room [purchased by Saatchi in 1990] is only buyable if you've got somewhere to exhibit it. I was always in awe of Dia for making so many earthworks and site-specific installations possible; that is the exception - a collector whose significance survives. In short, sometimes you have to buy art that will have no value to anyone but you, because you like it and believe in it. The collector I have always admired most, Count Panza Di Biumo, was commissioning large installations by Carl Andre, Donald Judd and Dan Flavin at a time when nobody but a few other oddballs were interested.
Which artists do you display in your own home? Are you constantly changing the works you have there? Is there a core of favourites which stay there?
CS: My house is a mess, but any day now we'll get round to hanging some of the stacks of pictures sitting on the floor.
Excluding shows in your own gallery, what have been your favourite three exhibitions, either in a museum or commercial gallery, in the last 20 years?
CS: I'm restricting myself to non-blockbusters, so no Picasso at MoMA or El Greco at the National Gallery or the dozen other spectaculars I gratefully lapped up: 1. Clyfford Still at the Metropolitan Museum New York (1980); 2. Jeff Koons at International with Monument Gallery, New York (December 1985); 3. Goldsmiths College MA degree show (1997).
Why don't you attend your own openings?
CS: I don't go to other people's openings, so I extend the same courtesy to my own.
Do you think the UK press treats you unfairly?
CS: No. If you can't take a good kicking, you shouldn't parade how much luckier you are than other people.
Were you surprised that the National Gallery of Australia chose to opt out of taking the "Sensation" exhibition in 2000? How do you respond to the chief reason given for the cancellation, which was a serious concern about "museum ethics" in the blurring of lines between public and private interests? The then-director, Brian Kennedy, even wrote an essay about museum ethics, to which he directed the attention of the media. Do you feel there was any question of ethics involved?
CS: The National Gallery pulled out of "Sensation" because it was causing a kerfuffle in New York at the time, and some of your fine local politicians decided to jump on the bandwagon. Brian Kennedy rolled over and who can blame him. Life's hard enough without looking to be a hero. But "museum ethics" was just a feeble attempt to build a smoke screen. The central issue was the power of religious groups who it was feared would be enraged by a Black Madonna "covered" in elephant dung.
Did you personally burn, or did you contract with a professional arsonist to burn, your warehouse filled with your art?
CS: It wasn't terrifically amusing the first time dull people came up with this. Now it's the 100th time.
The concerns of an advertising executive centre upon novelty, immediacy of impact, and relevance to the target market. Many would say that these are the qualities that have characterised your collection. The concerns of the serious collector centre upon quality, the capacity to transcend time, high levels of skill and historical significance. To what degree do you feel these apparently divergent criteria to be in conflict?
CS: The "adman" theory is very appealing, very popular with commentators. But the snobbery of those who think an interest in art is the province of gentle souls of rarefied sensibility never fails to amuse. Heaven forfend that anyone in "trade" should enter the hallowed portals of the aesthete. I liked working in advertising, but don't believe my taste in art, such as it is, was entirely formed by TV commercials. And I don't feel especially conflicted enjoying a Mantegna one day, a Carl Andre the next day and a student work the next.
What do you think about the great transition in the external aesthetics of museum architecture? Is it detracting from the art within or is it now necessary to attract a bigger audience? Do you think we are now seeing the end of the white cube as a gallery space, because of the nature of modern art?
CS: If art can't look good except in the antiseptic gallery spaces dictated by museum fashion of the last 25 years, then it condemns itself to a somewhat limited vocabulary. In any event it is often more interesting to see art in appropriated buildings like the Schaffhausen in Switzerland, or the Arsenale in Venice, or that remarkable edifice that hosted "Zeitgeist" in Berlin. Buildings like these are flexible enough to display virtually anything an artist wants to make, and sometimes to better effect than somewhere swankily of-the-moment. So although a Bilbao or two is thrilling, there seems little point in spending millions on creating identical, austere Modernist palaces in every world city, rather than using the money to actually buy some art. But if you're looking for a "destination" venue that will bring happy hordes to your city, Frank Gehry is probably pretty good value.
Blake Gopnik, the Chief Art Critic for the Washington Post has stated that "painting is dead and has been dead for 40 years. If you want to be considered a serious contemporary artist, the only thing that you should be doing is video or manipulated photography." Do you agree or disagree and why?
CS: It's true that contemporary painting responds to the work of video makers and photographers. But it's also true that contemporary painting is influenced by music, writing, MTV, Picasso, Hollywood, newspapers, Old Masters. But, unlike many of the art world heavy hitters and deep thinkers, I don't believe painting is middle-class and bourgeois, incapable of saying anything meaningful anymore, too impotent to hold much sway. For me, and for people with good eyes who actually enjoy looking at art, nothing is as uplifting as standing before a great painting whether it was painted in 1505 or last Tuesday.
With your painting show, do you think you are setting a trend or following one? Haven't we all been here before with the 1981 show "A New Spirit in Painting"?
CS: You point out that "A New Spirit in Painting" was nearly a quarter of a century ago. So I am tickled by your suggestion that another survey of painting now is over-egging it. I don't have a particularly lofty agenda with "The Triumph of Painting". People need to see some of the remarkable painting produced, and overlooked, in an age dominated by the attention given to video, installation and photographic art. Just flick through the catalogues of the mega shows, the Documentas, the Biennales, of the last 15 years. But, of course, much of the painting our exhibition will be highlighting has itself been profoundly affected by the work of video and photographic art. In any event, who's to say what will one day appear to have been trendsetting? Sometimes artists who receive breathless acclaim initially, seem to conk out. Other artists who don't register so keenly at the time, prove to be trailblazers.
Are paintings a better investment than sharks in formaldehyde? The Hirst shark looks much more shrivelled now than it used to, but a Peter Doig canvas will still look great in 10 years and will be much easier to restore.
CS: There are no rules about investment. Sharks can be good. Artist's dung can be good. Oil on canvas can be good. There's a squad of conservators out there to look after anything an artist decides is art.
At the top end of the art market, public and commercial spaces have become almost interchangeable. For example, at "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida", a show of new work by Damien Hirst, Sarah Lucas, and Angus Fairhurst, at Tate Britain earlier this year, most of the work on display was for sale and it came from just two dealers: Jay Jopling of White Cube and Sadie Coles. Do you see a conflict of interest in a publicly funded museum being used as a sale room in this way?
CS: I like everything that helps contemporary art reach a wider audience. However, sometimes a show is so dismal it puts people off. Many curators, and even the odd Turner Prize jury, produce shows that lack much visual appeal, wearing their oh-so-deep impenetrability like a badge of honour. They undermine all efforts to encourage more people to respond to new art. So although I didn't adore "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida", it was nice to see something in the Tate that was fresh from the artist's studio. It helped make the Tate more relevant to today's artists. Of course the work had to come direct from the artists' dealers - it was brand new. Anyway what's wrong with Jay Jopling getting just a little richer?
How would you assess the Tate's performance as a museum of contemporary art?
CS: Obviously the Tate Modern is a stupendous gift to Britain, and Nicholas Serota [director of Tate] is my hero to have pulled it off so masterfully. I like some of the exhibitions at the Tate, but many are disappointing. The curators should get out more and see more studios and grass-roots shows. They evidently lack an adventurous curatorial ambition. And as for having outside curators called in to pick work at the Frieze art fair for the Tate collection... It isn't enough to rely on the latest Turbine Hall installation and the Turner Prize to generate interest. The Tate seems sadly disengaged from the young British art community. It ought to have reflected the energy and diversity of British art over the last 15 years in both its exhibitions and collecting policy. Puzzlingly, museums in Europe and the US are far more interested in examining Britain's recent artistic achievements.
Why do overseas museums have better collections of Britart than the Tate?
CS: Because the Tate curators didn't know what they were looking at during the early 90s, when even the piddliest budget would have bought you many great works. But I'm no better. I regularly find myself waking up to art I passed by or simply ignored.
After your death, would you like to see the core of your collection kept together and remain on public view?
CS: I don't buy art in order to leave a mark or to be remembered; clutching at immortality is of zero interest to anyone sane. I did offer my collection to Nicholas Serota at the Tate last year. This was about the time I was struggling with the problems at County Hall-both the alarming behaviour of the Japanese landlords, and my failure to get a grip on how to use the space well. I remembered that at the time Tate Modern opened, Nick had told me that there were new extensions planned that would add half again to the gallery capacity. But by the time I offered the collection to Nick, the Tate already had commitments for the extension. So I lost my chance for a tastefully engraved plaque and a 21-gun salute. And now the mood has passed, and I'm happy not to have to visit Tate Modern, or its storage depot, to look at my art.
Looking ahead in 100 years time, how do you think British art of the early 21st century will be regarded? Who are the great artists who will pass the test of time?
CS: General art books dated 2105 will be as brutal about editing the late 20th century as they are about almost all other centuries. Every artist other than Jackson Pollock, Andy Warhol, Donald Judd and Damien Hirst will be a footnote.
Perhaps your greatest legacy will be that you, more than any other, have been responsible for pitching modern and contemporary art into the UK's cultural mainstream. Contemporary art is now discussed in taxis and government think tanks. Did you set out to achieve this from the start?
CS: Yes.
What do you think of the art world?
CS: David Sylvester [the late critic] and I used to play a silly little game. We used to ask ourselves, which of the following - artist, curator, dealer, collector or critic - we would least like to be stranded with on a desert island for a few years. Of course, we could easily bring to mind a repellent example in each category, and it made the selection ever-changing, depending on who we ran into that bored us most the previous week. Anyway, we pretty much agreed on the following:
Dealers - An occupational hazard of some of my art collector friends' infatuation with art is their encounters with a certain type of art dealer. Pompous, power-hungry and patronising, these doyens of good taste would seem to be better suited to manning the door of a night-club, approving who will be allowed through the velvet ropes. Their behaviour alienates many fledgling collectors from any real involvement with the artist's vision. These dealers like to feel that they "control" the market. But, of course, by definition, once an artist has a vibrant market, it can't be controlled. For example, one prominent New York dealer recently said that he disapproved of the strong auction market, because it allowed collectors to jump the queue of his "waiting list". So instead of celebrating an artist's economic success, they feel castrated by any loss to their power base. And then there are visionary dealers, without whom many great artists of our century would have slipped by unheralded.
Critics - The art critics on some of Britain's newspapers could as easily have been assigned gardening or travel, and been cheerfully employed for life. This is because many newspaper editors don't themselves have much time to study their "Review" section, or have much interest in art. So we now enjoy the spectacle of critics swooning with delight about an artist's work when its respectability has been confirmed by consensus and a top-drawer show - the same artist's work that 10 years earlier they ignored or ridiculed. They must live in dread of some mean sod bringing out their old cuttings. And when Matthew Collings, pin-up boy of TV art commentary, states that the loss of contemporary art in the Momart fire didn't matter all that much - "these young artists can always produce more"- he tells you all you need to know about the perverse nature of some of those who mug a living as art critics. However, when a critic knows what she or he is looking at and writes revealingly about it, it's sublime.
Curators - With very few exceptions, the big-name globetrotting international mega-event curators are too prone to curate clutching their PC guidebook in one hand and their Bluffers Notes on art theory in the other. They seem to deliver the same type of Groundhog Day show, for the approval of 50 or so like-minded devotees. These dead-eyed, soulless, rent-a-curator exhibitions dominate the art landscape with their socio-political pretensions. The familiar grind of 70's conceptualist retreads, the dry as dust photo and text panels, the production line of banal and impenetrable installations, the hushed and darkened rooms with their interchangeable flickering videos are the hallmarks of a decade of numbing right-on curatordom. The fact that in the last 10 years only five of the 40 Turner Prize nominees have been painters tells you more about curators than about the state of painting today. But when you see something special, something inspired, you realise the debt we owe great curators and their unforgettable shows-literally unforgettable because you remember every picture, every wall and every juxtaposition.
Collectors - However suspect their motivation, however social-climbing their agenda, however vacuous their interest in decorating their walls, I am beguiled by the fact that rich folk everywhere now choose to collect contemporary art rather than racehorses, vintage cars, jewellery or yachts. Without them, the art world would be run by the State, in a utopian world of apparatchik-approved, Culture-Ministry-sanctioned art. So if I had to choose between Mr and Mrs Goldfarb's choice of art or some bureaucrat who would otherwise be producing VAT forms, I'll take the Goldfarbs. Anyway, some collectors I've met are just plain delightful, bounding with enough energy and enthusiasm to brighten your day.
Artists - If you study a great work of art, you'll probably find the artist was a kind of genius. And geniuses are different to you and me. So let's have no talk of temperamental, self-absorbed and petulant babies. Being a good artist is the toughest job you could pick, and you have to be a little nuts to take it on. I love them all.
Q&A with Charles Saatchi + the readers of The Independent 9th October 2006
So, Charles Saatchi, was Damien Hirst right to call you an art shopaholic? How would you rebrand Gordon Brown? Why are you so reclusive? What's Nigella's cooking really like? And what's the point of art, anyway? – The Independent, 09 October 2006
Your first wife is on record as saying that she only ever saw you reading comic books. Have you ever actually read a book? And if so, what was it? JOHANN WITT, by e-mail
Are you asking if I'm thick? I suppose I am rather, but that doesn't seem to hamper a career in advertising. And obviously, you can be as thick as a plank to buy art all day long.
How would you rebrand Gordon Brown? DANNY MORRIS, Manchester
His brand is flawless in its clarity, just like [[Kellogg Company | Kellogg's All-Bran. You know exactly what you're going to get with Gordon Brown.
If you were commissioning your own portrait, in which medium would be choose to be represented? EDWARD MAKIN, Bath
I'd rather eat the canvas than have someone paint me on it.
You were born in Baghdad. What's your view on the war and the suffering of the Iraqi people since Blair and Bush decided to invade? IRENE SVENSSON by e-mail
Saddam was obviously a grisly psychopath, but there are so many vile butchers running bits of the world, why pick on him? Either kill them all, and let the CIA run the world, or leave the Saddams alone to torture and kill their own people. You choose. Just please don't say the UN, they never do anything but cluck.
Can you tell me anything about yourself that might make me like you? TESSA CORBYN, by e-mail
But why would I care whether you like me?
What makes you laugh? JULIA QUIN, Sheffield
Do you think me glum because I always look cross in press photos? I'm sorry, it's just the way my face sets. But I always think that people with little sense of humour laugh most easily. Just sit in a theatre during a play critics call "screamingly funny" and as soon as the curtain opens and the lead steps on to the stage set, pours himself a glass of whisky and coughs, the audience starts guffawing. They are there to have a good time, and their happy laughter mode is on full-beam. I, sadly, often find the entire experience "screamingly dull" and sit barely managing a thin smile. But Nigella is very funny, and we have a handsome collection of friends who all seem to be either journalists or comedians, so I do in fact spend a good deal of my life in giggling fits, honking away like a mad thing.
Why has Damien Hirst lost his inspiration? RAUL ZE, by e mail
He is a deeply gifted artist, a genius among us, but he's had a bad run of shows over the past few years. All great artists have an off patch, and he's having his. Usually when that happens, artists try too hard and the results look effortful and overblown. But I'm sure his next show will be a winner.
Damien Hirst called you an art shopaholic. Was he right? TANIA RYLE-BLAKE, London
Too right.
What is it like being married to the most desirable woman on the planet? JOHN JUKES, by e-mail
Unbelievable - literally. Women are all a little deranged, everybody knows that, but why Nigella would wish to be with me is beyond human understanding. My bleating gratitude perhaps, surely the world's most effective aphrodisiac.
Is it not just vulgar to spend ten times the value of an artwork just to make sure you get your hands on it? NADINE FRENETTE, by e-mail
It is very vulgar, and I wish I had a more genteel, and cheaper, way of getting the pictures I want. But they are usually owned by very rich people who are often greedy.
What's the point of art? MATT SCOTT, London
To stop our eyeballs going into meltdown from all the rubbish TV and films we happily look at the rest of the time.
On finding an artist that you love, do you set limits on the number of pieces from that artist you will buy (please make an assumption that budget is a factor, particularly as it means other options are then limited)? ALISON MACLENNAN QC, by e-mail
There isn't a useful guideline I can think of. But a home full of the work of one favourite artist is often more interesting than a scatter-gun approach. Our house is usually full of Paula Rego pictures, but often as not it's just messy stacks of paintings I'm too lazy to hang, with empty walls and nails poking out when the Regos go off to some exhibition somewhere.
I'd happily pay good money to see the charred remains of your unfortunate warehouse on display in your gallery. Have you any plans in this regard? CHRISTOPH ALEXANDER, London SW19
I assure you that the art inside the warehouse was more fun to look at than the charred remains. But there's always a fire somewhere if you like looking at burnt-out buildings.
Does refurbishing Damien Hirst's rotting shark rob it of its meaning as art? MARTA DEVERT, Copenhagen
Completely.
Is London still at the cutting edge of world art? PATRICK VAIZEY, Cambridge
Yes it is. London is alone in breeding artists who organise their own alternative exhibitions in temporary spaces they commandeer - empty factories, offices, shops - and beat the dealers at showing the freshest art around. There are so many galleries in New York, it's probably easier for artists there to find dealers prepared to show new work by unknowns.
Are you really hoping to find the next Emin or Hirst when - as you recently said - you hunt for art in grotty parts of London at weekends? JACOB PURCELL, Belfast
If you don't live in hope, why get up of a morning? Is a dashed hope better than no hope? Must I always answer a question with a question?
With your former adman's hat on for a moment, would you say that David Cameron has the X-factor? D SHAHIN, London
I'd rather have Simon Cowell.
The artist Peter Blake has called you a "malign influence" because of the way you can "make" certain artists. Are you a malign influence? MAX KENNEDY, Hertfordshire
I wonder whether Peter Blake would consider me a less malign influence if I had bought some of his art. I try not to chew my nails down to the quick worrying about everything I do, otherwise I'd end up doing nothing.
Is there any artist you regret failing to snap up before they became famous? JACKSON AMES, Boston
Vermeer, Velazquez, Van Gogh. And that's just the Vs.
The visual arts leave me cold. I just don't get it. Where am I going wrong? KATE GRIMSHAW, by e-mail
Don't fret about it. I don't care about ballet leaving me cold. Or most films. Or nearly all theatre. There aren't enough hours in the day for all the things we do love to do, without looking for ways to force-feed yourself something that you just don't respond to.
Your USA Today show is already causing a fuss because of works like Terence Koh's Peeing Madonna. Why do you rate work with this kind of offensive shock value as "exciting"? VANORA PETERSON, Oxford
Many of the artists who we see in the National Gallery or the Louvre or the Uffizi were considered offensive or shocking once. I like all kinds of art, some of which is pretty boorish I grant you, but please be my guest at USA Today, and leave me a note if you think that anything there is truly more tasteless than so much we see around us every day.
What's wrong with the new generation emerging from British art schools? KERRY RICHARDSON, New York
What's wrong are the art schools. In Britain our art schools are, of course, under-funded. They therefore have to take on too many students from abroad with poor skills but rich parents who can afford the higher fees for overseas students, helping the schools' budgets but leaving talented, but impecunious, students without a look-in. In the era that created the YBAs, a brilliant crop of students came together with a wonderful group of teachers and that union created something memorable. The only memorable thing about art schools now is how forgettable the students' work invariably is. One has to marvel how much the spirit of confidence in our art schools has been sapped in just a few years.
Do you ever buy art that you admire technically, and in which you see some future value, but don't actually like? LEE HUGHES, St Albans
No.
Is it true you had to remove Tracey Emin's My Bed from your house because of the smell, and that someone turned off Marc Quinn's Self refrigeration causing the frozen blood to melt? SEAN O'TOOLE, by e-mail
No.
What's Nigella's cooking really like? FRANCINE LEGGE, Suffolk
I'm sure it's fantastic, but a bit wasted on me. I like toast with Dairylea, followed by Weetabix for supper. It drives her to distraction, frankly, particularly as she gets the blame for my new fat look. But the children love her cooking, and our friends seem to look forward to it.
Did you cringe for your wife when you watched her terrible chat show? DAISY RYAN, by e-mail
Nigella owed somebody a favour and repaid it in full with that show. But what's not to like? I and a few million other Nigella fans enjoyed it anyway because we could happily stare at her all day.
How do you rate political advertising today? SYED HUSSAIN, Cardiff
Dim, unsubtle and charmless ever since I stopped doing it, he answered modestly.
You don't go to openings or parties and rarely give interviews. Why is a man with such a flair for publicity so reclusive? IAN USBORNE, Kent
I'm just a cocktail party dud, I'm afraid, and am lost in admiration for friends who are at ease walking into a roomful of people, and chatting happily as they work the room. I would do more interviews but I think I am too sensitive (definition: vain and touchy).
I know very little about contemporary art but have £1,000 to invest. Any advice? FRIEDA PORTEUS, Edinburgh
Premium bonds. Art is no investment unless you get very, very lucky, and can beat the professionals at their game. Just buy something you really like that will give you a thousand pounds' worth of pleasure over the years. And take your time looking for something really special, because looking is half the fun.
Who are your living heroes? JACQUI MARUKO, by e-mail
Gary Cooper in High Noon. Marlon Brando in On the Waterfront. Cary Grant in North by Northwest. Burt Lancaster in Sweet Smell of Success. Gregory Peck in To Kill a Mockingbird. They live forever, if you grew up in the local Regal.
===Q&A with Charles Saatchi + The Sunday Times, 5th October 2008===
Why China? If China's economy keeps growing as it has, our children will all be speaking Chinese in 50 years' time. When I first looked at the new Chinese art, I thought it was horrible, and most art that looks horrible at first stays looking horrible. Occasionally, though, the really awful ones nag at you to go back for a second and third look, and they worm away until you finally get it.
Why now? Now that I have the zeal of the newly converted, I feel compelled to proselytise.
Is the exhibition about Saatchi the collector, or Saatchi the salesman? It's about the art, stupid.
Do you believe in it all? I am not clever enough to be a cynic, so belief is the only option available to me.
Is there not a paradox somewhere? How can you be so shy and yet so voluble? I am neither shy nor voluble. I don't like going to parties, but I do like showing off my art. I am quite comfortable with my schizophrenia.
Have you ever taken advantage of anyone in the art world? If you asked the Dalai Lama, Mother Teresa or Mahatma Gandhi if they had ever taken advantage of anyone, they would be lying if they claimed they hadn't. So you can put me right up there with them, thanks.
What is your proudest achievement? I don't do pride. That's not to say I don't have an ego the size of an aircraft hangar, but I'm not even very proud of that.
Do you feel responsible for the British art scene as we know it? No.
What keeps you going? What's the alternative?
Do you still care about money? I have never cared enough about money to worry about spending it, and have been fortunate to make enough to be spoiled rotten.
Do you care what people think? Everyone cares what some people think, but luckily I seem to care less than most.
Professionally, what was your greatest mistake? That is a really depressing question. I have made so many mistakes, and such really stupid ones, I would start blubbing away if I could remember even half of them. But do not dwell on cock-ups, I say. You don't learn by your mistakes - at least I don't - so best to blunder on making fresh ones.
Is modern art political? Is modern politics art?
What do you buy apart from art? I have a shocking Frappuccino habit, so what doesn't go on art goes to Starbucks.
What is the nature of the relationship between Charles Saatchi and the artists? I don't buy art to ingratiate myself with artists or socialise in the art world. Most of the artists I meet are rather like everybody else you meet: some are nicer than others.
Did Charles Saatchi's activities make London the centre of contemporary art? London is not the centre of contemporary art.
What about Manchester? Could it happen anywhere else? Not Manchester, I think. But they do football pretty well.
Of which artist are you most proud? How can I feel proud about an artist's work? I didn't have the idea, and I didn't make the art. There's no pride to be had by simply buying it.
What are your thoughts on the rise of the artist as celebrity? Better to be a celebrity because people talk about your art, rather than your wedding photos, in Hello!
What do you like about the "old geezers" piece in the show by Sun Yuan and Peng Yu? I'm rather looking forward to my wheelchair years. Nigella has already fixed me up with caring Wife No 4 to push me about and wipe the drool, and brutal Wife No 5 to make me welcome death gratefully.
How do you decide where to put each work? No subtlety here. I just go by what shapes and colours work together in a room. Occasionally I try putting things together that have a meaningful "link", and then back off quickly. The poncy way some curators try to demonstrate their "vision" by highlighting connections gives me the collywobbles.
How free are Chinese artists? Free? Have you seen the prices they ask?
After the semen paintings displayed in your 2006 show USA Today - is there anything you wouldn't show at Saatchi? Anything I don't like.
After China, what next? Can you envisage an Islamic how?' Funny you should say that. I'm working on a show for 2010 called Out of Arabia. What I've found so far from Iran and Iraq is encouraging.
Have you got any Chinese stuff at home? What's with the "stuff"? This is art, mate.
Controversies
- Artists such as Sandro Chia and Sean Scully, to whom Saatchi had been a patron in the late 1970s and early 1980s, felt betrayed by him when their work was sold in bulk from his collection, and Saatchi was accused of destroying Chia's career. Saatchi said that the matter only became an issue because Chia "had a psychological need to be rejected in public" and is now "most famous for being dumped", but that he had only ever owned seven Chia paintings, which were sold back to Chia's two dealers, who re-sold them easily to museums or notable collectors. Saatchi said that a sale of strong work can help to galvanise the market for them.[61]
- Royal Academy, London, when Sensation opened.
- In 1997, in Sensation, London, Marcus Harvey's giant painting of Myra Hindley made from children's hand prints was attacked by two men with ink and eggs, and picketed by the Mothers Against Murder and Aggression protest group, accompanied by Winnie Johnson, the mother of one of Hindley's Moors murders victims. [62] The work was restored and exhibited in the show, which drew nearly 300,000 visitors, exceeding any previous contemporary art show.[63]
- The Sensation show in New York offended Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, because of Chris Ofili's painting, Holy Virgin Mary, which incorporates elephant dung.[58] Guiliani, who had seen the work in the catalogue but not in the show, called it "sick stuff" and threatened to withdraw the annual $7 million City Hall grant from the Brooklyn Museum hosting the show, because "You don't have a right to government subsidy for desecrating somebody else's religion." [64] John O'Connor, the Cardinal of New York, said, "one must ask if it is an attack on religion itself," and the president of America's biggest group of Orthodox Jews, Mandell Ganchrow, called it "deeply offensive" [65] William A Donohue, President of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, said the work "induces revulsion”.[66]
Guiliani started a lawsuit to evict the museum, and Arnold Lehman, the museum director, filed a federal lawsuit against Guiliani for a breach of the First Amendment. [67] Hillary Clinton spoke up for the museum, as did the New York Civil Liberties Union.[68] The editorial board of The New York Times said Guiliani's stance "promises to begin a new Ice Age in New York's cultural affairs." ”.[69] The paper also carried a petition in support signed by 106 creatives, including Susan Sarandon, Steve Martin, Norman Mailer, Arthur Miller, Kurt Vonnegut and Susan Sontag, saying that the mayor "blatantly disregards constitutional protection for freedom of the arts[70] Ofili, who is Roman Catholic, said, "elephant dung in itself is quite a beautiful object." [71]
The museum produced a yellow stamp, saying the artworks on show "may cause shock, vomiting, confusion, panic, euphoria and anxiety." [72] and Ofili's painting was shown behind a Plexiglass screen, guarded by a museum attendant and an armed police officer. [73] Jeffrey Hogrefe, New York Observer art critic, said, "They wanted to get some publicity and they got it. I think it was pretty calculated." .[74] The editor-in-chief of the New York Art & Auction magazine, Bruce Wolmer, said: "When the row eventually fades the only smile will be on the face of Charles Saatchi, a master self-promoter." [75] Guiliani lost his court case and was forced to restore funding. [76]
- The Sensation show was scheduled to open in June 1999 at the National Gallery of Australia, but was cancelled, the director, Brian Kennedy, saying that, although it was due to be funded by the Australian government, it was "too close to the market", since finance for the Brooklyn exhibition included $160,000 from Saatchi, who owned the work, $50,000 from Christie's, who had sold work for Saatchi, and $10,000 from dealers of many of the artists. Kennedy said he was unaware of this, when he accepted the show. When the show opened in London at the Royal Academy, there had been criticisms that it would raise the value of the work. [77]
- On 24 May 2004, a fire in the Momart storage warehouse destroyed many works from the collection, including the Tracey Emin work Everyone I Have Ever Slept With 1963–95 ("the tent"), and Jake and Dinos Chapman's tableau Hell. A gallery spokesman said that Saatchi was distraught at the loss: "It is terrible. A significant part of the work in his collection has been affected." One art insurance specialist valued the lost work at £50m.[78]
- In 2004, Saatchi's recent acquisitions (including Stella Vine) were featured in New Blood, a show of mostly then-little-known artists working in a variety of media. It received a hostile critical reception, which caused Saatchi to speak out angrily against the critics. Saatchi, said that “recent British Art is pretty much the only art that will be worth more than a footnote in future chronicles of the late twentieth century” [79]
- Saatchi sold works from his YBA collection, beginning in December 2004 with Hirst's iconic shark for nearly £7 million[80] (he had bought it for £50,000 in 1991), followed by at least twelve other works by Hirst, mostly back to Hirst himself.[81] Four works by Ron Mueck, including key works Pinocchio and Dead Dad, went for an estimated £2.5 million.[82] Mark Quinn's Self, bought in 1991 for a reported £13,000, sold for £1.5 million.[83] Saatchi also sold all but one work by Sam Taylor-Wood (he showed five in the Sensation show).[84] The sale was compared to his sale in the 1980s of most of his post-war American art collection.[85] David Lee, one of Saatchi’s most voluble detractors, said: "Charles Saatchi has all the hallmarks of being a dealer, not a collector. He first talks up the works and then sells them."[86]
- In 2004, media controversy arose over two paintings by ex-stripper, Stella Vine. One was of Princess Diana called Hi Paul Can You Come Over, showing the Princess with blood dripping from her lips. The other was of drug user Rachel Whiterear, whose body was being exhumed at the time; Whiterear's parents and the police appealed for the painting to be withdrawn,[87] but it was not.
- In 2004 the Stuckists reported Saatchi to the Office of Fair Trading alleging unfair competition.[88] The complaint was not upheld. They also picketed the opening of The Triumph of Painting claiming that Saatchi had stolen their ideas.[89][90] (Vine had previously been involved with the Stuckists.)
- The gallery's tenancy of County Hall had ongoing difficulties with Makoto Okamoto, London branch manager of the owners, who Saatchi complained had kicked artworks and sealed off the disabled toilets.[91] On 28 September 2005, the gallery announced they would be moving to new and larger premises in the Duke of York’s HQ, Chelsea, though Saatchi said it was "tragic" to leave.[92] On 6 October 2005, a court case began, brought by the owners and landlord of County Hall, the Shirayama Shokusan Company and Cadogan Leisure Investments, against Danovo (whose majority shareholder was Charles Saatchi), trading as the Saatchi Gallery,[93] for alleged breach of conditions, including a two-for-one ticket offer in Time Out magazine and exhibition of work in unauthorised areas.[94] Retrieved 15 October 2005. The judgement went against the gallery; the judge, Sir Donald Ratee, ordered the gallery to leave the premises because of a "deliberate disregard" of the landlords' rights.[95]
On 8 March 2006, Danovo was forced into liquidation with debts around £1.8 million, having failed to pay the amount ordered by the court to the County Hall landlords.[96] However this order was rescinded on the 16 March 2006 by Judge Simmonds in the High Court, and all sums due to creditors having been paid in full.
- In 2006 the work of several artists in USA Today, an exhibition of contemporary American art from the Saatchi Gallery at the Royal Academy in London, provoked controversy in the media and among some Royal Academicians who called for certain works to be installed in an 'adult-only' room. A notice advising 'parental guidance' before viewing the work of Dash Snow and Gerald Davis was posted by the Royal Academy,[97] on a wall outside the room in which the controversial works were hung: Dash Snow's Fuck the Police, in which newspaper cuttings relating to police corruption are smeared with the artist's own semen, and a painting entitled Monica by Gerald Davis in which a young woman engages in fellatio.
Saatchi Gallery Reference
Saatchi Gallery Timeline
1985 – Charles Saatchi opens the 30 000 square foot Saatchi Gallery at Boundary Road, London NW8, featuring many key works by Donald Judd, Brice Marden, Cy Twombly and Andy Warhol. This was the first UK exhibition for Twombly and Marden.
1986 – The Saatchi Gallery exhibits works by Anselm Kiefer and Richard Serra. The caretaker’s flat and one wall of the gallery was demolished in order to allow the installation of large Serra sculptures.
1987 – The New York Art Now show introduces artists including Jeff Koons, Robert Gober, Ashley Bickerton, Carroll Dunham and Phillip Taaffe for the first time to the UK. The blend of minimalism and pop art has a profound influence on British art students.
1988-1991 – The gallery introduces artists including; Leon Golub, Phillip Guston, Sigmar Polke, Bruce Nauman, Richard Artschwager and Cindy Sherman to British viewers.
1992 – The Saatchi Gallery curates its first in a series of shows entitled Young British Artists introducing the term “YBA” for this generation of artists. Damien Hirst, Marc Quinn, Rachel Whiteread, Gavin Turk, Glenn Brown, Sarah Lucas, Jenny Saville and Gary Hume were all presented to a wider public in these shows.
1997 – Sensation: Young British Art from the Saatchi Gallery opens at the Royal Academy of Arts featuring 42 artists including The Chapman Brothers, Marcus Harvey, Damien Hirst, Ron Mueck, Jenny Saville, Sarah Lucas & Tracey Emin. Sensation attracted over 300 000 visitors, a record breaking attendance for a contemporary art exhibition.
1999 – Sensation travels to The National Galerie at the Hamburger Bahnhof in Berlin in the autumn, breaking attendance records.
1999 – Sensation tours to Brooklyn Museum of Art, New York, creating unprecedented political and media controversy and becoming a touchstone for debate about the “morality” of contemporary art. This exhibition also broke attendance records at the museum.
1999 – The Saatchi Gallery donates one hundred artworks to the Arts Council of Great Britain Collection, which operates a ‘lending library’ to museums and galleries around Britain, with the aim of increasing awareness and promoting interest in younger artists.
2000 – The Gallery donates 40 works by young British artists through the National Arts Collection Fund to eight museum collections across Britain.
2000 – The Gallery begins a series of one person shows of major international figures who have been largely unseen in Britain, including Duane Hanson, Boris Mikhailov and Alex Katz. Shows entitled Young Americans and Eurovision introduce a number of artists to the UK including John Currin, Andreas Gursky,Charles Ray, Richard Prince, Rineke Dijkstra, Lisa Yuskavage and Elizabeth Peyton.
2001 – I am a Camera exhibition opens at the Gallery, an exhibition of photography and other related works where traditional boundaries are blurred as photographs influence paintings, and paintings influence photographs. The show included work by many artists who had never exhibited before in the UK.
2002 – The Gallery donates 50 artworks to the Paintings in Hospitals programme which provides a lending library of over 3 000 original works of art to NHS hospitals, hospices and health centres throughout England, Wales and Ireland.
2003 – The Saatchi Gallery moved to County Hall, London | County Hall]], the Greater London Council’s former headquarters on the South Bank, creating a 40 000 square foot exhibition space. The opening show included a retrospective by Damien Hirst as well as works by other YBAs such as the Chapman Brothers, Tracey Emin, Jenny Saville and Sarah Lucas. There were 1,000 guests at the launch, which included a "nude happening" of 200 naked people staged by artist Spencer Tunick.
2004 – A fire in the Momart storage warehouse destroyed many works from the collection, including the major Tracey Emin work Everyone I Have Ever Slept With 1963–95 ("the tent"), and Jake and Dinos Chapman's tableau Hell.
2005 – The Saatchi Gallery launches a year-long, three-part series exhibition, The Triumph of Painting. The opening exhibition focuses on a number of influential European painters, Marlene Dumas, Martin Kippenberger, Luc Tuymans, Peter Doig, Jörg Immendorff, and followed with younger painters including Albert Oehlen, Wilhelm Sasnal and Thomas Scheibitz. 2005 – The gallery announced it was moving to take on the entire Duke of York’s Headquarters building in Chelsea. This put a halt to London shows while the new premises were being prepared.
2005 – A selection of works from The Triumph of Painting was exhibited in Leeds Art Gallery.
2006 -– During the period in between premises, the Saatchi Gallery website began an open-access section where artists could upload works of art and a biography onto their own pages. The site currently has over 100 000 artist’s profiles and receives over 68 million hits a day, and is ranked at 316 in the Alexa Top 50 000 World Websites.
2006 – The Saatchi Gallery in association with the Guardian newspaper opened the first ever reader-curated exhibition, showing the work of 10 artists registered on Saatchi Online. In November the Saatchi Gallery launched a new site within Saatchi Online exclusively for art students, called Stuart. Art students from all over the world were able to create their own home pages with images of their art, photos, lists of their favourite artists, books, films and television shows, and links to their friends' home pages. The site also allows students to chat online with each other, enabling art students across the globe to talk and exchange ideas about their art work. Other sections on Saatchi Online include; a daily art magazine, a forum, written and video blogs, as well as sections for street art, photography and illustration.
2006 – USA Today: New American Art from the Saatchi Gallery opens at the Royal Academy in London
2007 – A new feature was added to Saatchi Online at the beginning of 2007 called "Museums around the World" where over 2 800 museums can now be found online, showing highlights of their collections, exhibitions and other relevant information. 2 700 Colleges and Universities from around the world also include their profiles, enabling potential students to examine their prospectuses.
2007 – USA Today: New American Art from the Saatchi Gallery toured to The State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg, Russia.
2008 – The Saatchi Gallery reopens on the 9th of October in the entire 70,000 square feet Duke of York's Headquarters building on Kings Road in Chelsea, London. The inaugural exhibition is The Revolution Continues: New Art from China, bringing together the work of 24 of China’s leading young artists in a wide reaching survey of recent painting, sculpture and installation.
Statistics
• At County Hall the gallery received 600,000 visitors a year. • There were over 1,350 school visits in 2006.
Exhibitions and Artists
Jake and Dinos Chapman Tracey Emin Chris Ofili Marcus Harvey Sarah Lucas Ron Mueck Duane Hanson Paula Rego Ashley Bickerton [[Damien Hirst] Sarah Lucas Rebecca Warren Stella Vine Jonathan Meese Daniel Richter Dana Schutz Tal R Tim Noble and Sue Webster
Triumph of Painting 1
Peter Doig Marlene Dumas Jörg Immendorff Martin Kippenberger Hermann Nitsch Daniel Richter Luc Tuymans
Triumph of Painting 2
Franz Ackermann Kai Althoff Cecily Brown Eberhard Havekost Albert Oehlen Wilhelm Sasnal Thomas Scheibitz Dirk Skreber Matthias Weischer
The Revolution Continues: New Chinese Art
Zhang Dali Zeng Fanzhi Wang Guangyi Zheng Guogu Zhang Haiying Zhang Hongtu Zhang Huan Qiu Jie Xiang Jing Shi Jinsong Fang Lijun Yue Minjun Li Qing Wu Shanzhuan Shen Shaomin Li Songsong Zhan Wang Liu Wei Zhang Xiaogang Zhang Xiaotao Cang Xin Shi Xinning Li Yan Bai Yiluo Sun Yuan & Peng Yu Zhang Yuan Yin Zhaohui Feng Zhengjie
Unveiled: New Art From The Middle East
Diana Al-Hadid Halim Al-Karim Ahmed Alsoudani Kader Attia Nadia Ayari Ali Banisadr Barbad Golshiri Ramin Haerizadeh Rokni Haerizadeh Khaled Hafez Hayv Kahraman Jeffar Khaldi Laleh Khorramian Farsad Labbauf Tala Madani Ahmad Morshedloo Sara Rahbar Marwan Rechmaoui
Shape of Things To Come: New Sculpture
Kader Attia Dan Attoe David Batchelor Huma Bhabha Karla Black Alina & Jeff Bliumis Sarah Braman Bozidar Brazda Olaf Breuning Peter Buggenhout Tom Burr Jedediah Caesar Peter Coffin Dan Colen Berlinde de Bruyckere Folkert de Jong Guerra de la Paz Michael DeLucia Daphne Fitzpatrick Rachel Harrison David Herbert Patrick Hill Christian Holstad Thomas Houseago Jessica J. Hutchins Ryan Johnson Matt Johnson Jacob Dahl Jurgensen Alice Könitz Ian Kiaer Terence Koh Molly Larkey Paul Lee Nathan Mabry Jorge Mayet Josephine Meckseper Matthew Monahan William J. O'Brien Kaz Oshiro Gosha Ostretsov Jon Pylypchuk Sean Raspet Stephen G. Rhodes Halsey Rodman Florian Roithmayr Sterling Ruby Will Ryman Lara Schnitger Macrae Semans Conrad Shawcross Gedi Sibony Tamuna Sirbiladaze Allison Smith Agathe Snow Kirsten Stoltmann Erick Swenson Mateo Tannatt Stephanie Taylor Ryan Trecartin Nobuko Tsuchiya Francis Upritchard Banks Violette Rebecca Warren Andro Wekua Andy Yoder
The Empire Strikes Back: Indian Art Today
Jaishri Abichandani Mansoor Ali Kriti Arora Shezad Dawood Atul Dodiya Chitra Ganesh Probir Gupta Subodh Gupta Tushar Joag Jitish Kallat Reena Saini Kallat Bharti Kher Rajan Krishnan Tallur L.N Huma Mulji Pushpamala N Yamini Nayar Justin Ponmany Rajesh Ram Rashid Rana TV Santhosh Schandra Singh Hema Upadhyay T Venkanna
Abstract America New Painting From The U.S.
Kristin Baker John Bauer Dan Bayles Mark Bradford Joe Bradley Matthew Brannon Carter Eric and Heather ChanSchatz Andy Collins Francesca DiMattio Judith Eisler Inka Essenhigh Bart Exposito Will Fowler Dana Frankfort Eric Freeman Barnaby Furnas Joanne Greenbaum Mark Grotjahn Marc Handelman Jacob Hashimoto Daniel Hesidence Elliott Hundley Douglas Kolk Chris Martin Ryan McGinness Ivan Morley Elizabeth Neel Baker Overstreet Michael Phelan David Ratcliff Scott Reeder Ruth Root Amanda Ross-Ho Amy Sillman Josh Smith Marc Swanson Dan Walsh Garth Weiser Aaron Wexler Aaron Young
Germania: New Art From Germany
Markus Amm Artists Anonymous Michael Bauer Dirk Bell Alexandra Bircken Andre Butzer Bjorn Dahlem Isa Genzken Felix Gmelin Kati Heck Jeppe Hein Thomas Helbig Lothar Hempel Martin Honert Friedrich Kunath Stefan Kürten Johannes Kahrs Jutta Koether Ulrich Lamsfuss Andrea Lehmann Jonathan Meese Anselm Reyle Kirstine Roepstorff Julian Rosefeldt Christoph Ruckhäberle Silke Schatz Gert & Uwe Tobias Corinne Wasmuht Johannes Wohnseifer Thomas Zipp
Paintwork
Ellen Altfest Jules de Balincourt Whitney Bedford Katherine Bernhardt Amy Bessone Shannon Bool Cris Brodahl Clayton Brothers Agnieszka Brzezanska Mathew Cerletty Michael Cline Dan Colen Justin Craun Adam Cvijanovic Dexter Dalwood Gerald Davis Ian Davis Stef Driesen Nicole Eisenman John Finneran Jason Fox Ry Fyan Valerie Hegarty Shara Hughes Matthew Day Jackson Chantal Joffe Tillman Kaiser Raffi Kalenderian Khalif Kelly Anya Kielar John Korner Miltos Manetas Lucy McKenzie Rodney McMillian Bjarne Melgaard Jin Meyerson Ian Monroe Kristine Moran Wangechi Mutu Gosha Ostretsov Jon Pylypchuk Tal R Michael Raedecker Muntean & Rosenblum Stefan Sandner Dana Schutz Martina Steckholzer Jansson Stegner Henry Taylor David Thorpe Kelley Walker Andro Wekua Paula Wilson Haeri Yoo
Out of Focus: Photography Now
Jonathan Allen Tanyth Berkeley Olaf Breuning Elina Brotherus JH Engstrom Andrea Fraser Chitra Ganesh Gao Brothers Luis Gispert Anne Hardy Dan Houldsworth Idris Khan Florian Maier-Aichen Ryan McGinley Boris Mikhailov Pushpmala N David Noonan Zhang Peng Mariah Robertson Julian Rosefeldt Dash Snow A.L. Steiner John Stezaker Sara Vanderbeek Miao Xiaochun Pinar Yolacan
Newspeak: British Art Now
Tasha Amini Helene Appel Jonathan Baldock Anna Barriball Steve Bishop Karla Black Lyn. Yiadom Boakye Pablo Bronstein Carla Busuttil Nick Byrne Spartacus Chetwynd Steven Claydon William Daniels Peter Davies Robert Dowling Graham Durward Dick Evans Tessa Farmer Dee Ferris Michael Fullerton Jaime Gili Anthea Hamilton Iain Hetherington Alexander Hoda Sigrid Holmwood Systems House Graham Hudson Dean Hughes Mustafa Hulusi Paul Johnson Edward Kay Scott King Alastair MacKinven Christina Mackie Goshka Macuga Jill Mason Alan Michael Ryan Mosley Rupert Norfolk Arif Ozakca Dan Perfect Peter Peri Ged Quinn Clunie Reid Barry Reigate A. Sanders-Dunnachie Maaike Schoorel Daniel Silver Renee So Fergal Stapleton Caragh Thuring Phoebe Unwin Donald Urquhart Jonathan Wateridge Toby Ziegler
The Power of Paper
Simon Bedwell Alan Brooks Jodie Carey Carter Sean Dack Chitra Ganesh Hilary Harnischfeger Jacob Hashimoto Christian Holstad James Howard Elliot Hundley Qiu Jie Annie Kevans John Kleckner Douglas Kolk Dr Lakra Fang Lijun Steven Lowery Ruth Marten Dominic McGill Aleksandra Mir Matthew Monahan Olivia Plender Emily Prince Tal R Kirstine Roepstorff Jamie Shovlin Zak Smith Dash Snow Meredyth Sparks Yuken Teruya
Books
• Saatchi Opus • Abstract America • Germania • The Revolution Continues: New Art From China • Sarah Kent, "Shark Infested Waters: The Saatchi Collection of British Art in the 90s", Philip Wilson Publishers Ltd, 2003, ISBN 0-85667-584-9. • Rita Hatton and John A. Walker, "Supercollector, a Critique of Charles Saatchi", The Institute of Artology, 3rd edition 2005, paperback, ISBN 0-9545702-2-7 • USA Today • The Triumph Of Painting • The Triumph Of Painting, Supplementary Volume • The Triumph Of Painting, Supplementary Volume • 100 The Work That Changed British Art • Hell, Jake & Dinos Chapman • Paula Rego • Young Americans • Stephan Balkenhol • Fiona Rae & Gary Hume • Duane Hanson • Shark Infested Waters, The Saatchi Collection Of British Art In The 90's • Young German Artists 2 • Sensation • Alex Katz: 25 Years Of Painting • Young Americans 2 • Neurotic Realism • Eurovision • Ant Noises 1 • Ant Noises 2 • The Arts Council Gift • I Am A Camera • New Labour • Young British Art • Saatchi Decade • Boris Mikhailov: Case History • Damien Hirst
Reviews and Articles
Triumph of Painting
- Richard Dorment, Daily Telegraph. 06/07/2005 Violence, perversity and sadistic genius.
- Meredith Etherington-Smith, Sunday Telegraph Subversion on Canvas
- Caroline Boucher, The Observer, Sunday July 10 2005 Go ahead, patronise me
- Sarah Kent, Time Out. Paint it Back
- Sue Hubbard, The Independent, Let's get Serious
- Ben Lewis, Sunday Telegraph, New Life Sprung from the Dead
- Fison Guner, Metro, Painting Skills get Brush-up
- Dr. Janet McKenzie, Studio International, 17/5/05 The Triumph of Painting/Colour Power
- Richard Dorment, Daily Telegraph, 26/01/2005 The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
- Jonathan Jones, The Guardian, Thursday January 27 2005 From Sublime to Ridiculous
- Tom Lubbock, The Independent, Tuesday, 25 January 2005 The triumph of painting? That's a pretty rich claim
- Gail Lusby, Atencion San Miguel, Apr 7, 2006 The Triumph of Painting, Part I Bigger isn't better
- Svetlana Alpers, ArtForum, Sept 2005 Wheel of Fortune
- Craig Garrett, Flash Art No.241, 2005 pp. 112-3 Spotlight, Triumph of Painting
USA Today
- Morgan Falconer, The Times The states they're in
- Jackie Wullschlager, The Financial Times, An ad-man's snapshot of the US
- Richard Dorment, The Daily Telegraph, Danger - American artists at work
- Fisun Guner, Metro, Bold new Portrait of America
- Andreas Whittam-Smith, The Independent, USA Today
- Sue Hubbard, The Independent, Look at the States we're in
- Gordon Burn, The Guardian, Make it new
- Martin Gayford, The Daily Telegraph, 'I see more art than anyone else alive'
- Francesca Gavin, BBC Collective, Saatchi's American collection
- Ana Finel Honigman, The Guardian, USA Today won't be gone tomorrow
- Paul Mitchell, World Socialist Web Site, USA Today: A political outlook emerging amongst artists
- Von Oliver Koerner von Gustorf und Ossian Ward, Die Welt, [http://www.saatchi-gallery.co.uk/current/usa_reviews16.htm Saatchi promueve el arte joven de EEUU, Carlos Garc�Osuna, El Economista
Der Weg zur?r Macht]
The Revolutions Continues: New Chinese Art
- BBC, Tuesday, 7 October 2008 Saatchi leads Chinese revolution
- Jackie Wullschlager, Financial Times, Oct 10 2008 The stuff of people's prayers and dreams
- Dylan Jones, The Independent, Saturday, 18 October 2008 Talk of the town
- Richard Dorment , Daily Telegraph, 07/10/2008 The Revolution Continues: New Art From China at the Saatchi Gallery
- Laura Cumming, The Observer, Sunday October 12 2008 The Revolution Continues: New Art from China
- John Lee, Dallas News, Tuesday, November 4, 2008 After relocation, London's provocative Saatchi Gallery opens with exhibit of Chinese modern art
- The Sydney Morning Herald (Australia), November 1, 2008 How modern thou art
- Brian Sewell Evening Standard, 10.10.08 Thank you, Mr Saatchi
- Ossian Ward, Time Out, Tue Oct 7 2008 Charles Saatchi: interview
- Tim Adams, New Statesman, 23 October 2008 Credit crunchable
- Julie Dalby, Saatchi lastest] Culture Night XL, Circa (Ireland), Thursday, 09 October 2008
- Trend News (Azerbaijan), 09.10.08 New Saatchi Gallery in London puts China's artists on show
- Sheng Zhen, special zone press (China), 中国当代艺术 亮相萨奇画廊
- Kuwait Times, October 08, 2008 New Saatchi Gallery showcases Chinese art
- Dziennik (Poland), Saatchi otworzy nowa galerie
- BBC, Tuesday, 7 October 2008 Old men in Saatchi exhibition
- BBC, Tuesday, 7 October 2008 Exploring the weird and wonderful at Saatchi
- Lucie Godeau, France24, Oct 7 2008 Chinese revolution as new Saatchi Gallery opens in London
- Quentin Letts, Daily Mail, 09th October 2008 If Saatchi's new gallery is art, then I'm a Chinaman!
- Reuters, Oct 7 2008 Art guru Saatchi back with new gallery, China show
- BBC, Tuesday, 7 October 2008 In pictures: Saatchi Gallery
- Stephen Adams, Daily Telegraph, 06/10/08 Revolution Continues at the Saatchi Gallery
- Stephen Adams, Daily Telegraph, 06/10/08) Charles Saatchi's attention-grabbing new exhibition on Chinese art
- The Wall Street Journal, October 9, 2008 The Return of Charles Saatchi
- Rachel Campbell-Johnson, The Times, October 7, 2008 Charles Saatchi's old favourites - made in China
- Arifa Akbar, The Independent, Tuesday, 7 October 2008 Dog chews and Mao: Saatchi's art revolution
- Michael Glover, The Independent, Tuesday, 7 October 2008 The verdict on Saatchi's new gallery
- Matt Smith, Sky News, Oct 7 2008 'OAP Dodgems' At Saatchi Gallery
- Mark Brown, The Guardian, October 7 2008 From St John's Wood to Kings Road: is it third time lucky for Saatchi gallery?
- Waldemar Januszczak, Sunday Times, October 5, 2008 The Revolution continues at the new Saatchi Gallery
- Edwin Heathcote , Financial Times, [ http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/30897740-9169-11dd-b5cd-0000779fd18c.html?nclick_check=1 Oct 5, 2008 Classical frame for Saatchi's brand-new look]
- Louise Jury, Evening Standard, 06.10.08 Saatchi's Chinese Starter
- Brian Sewell, Evening Standard, [06.10.08) review
- Martin Gayford, Bloomberg, Oct 6 2008 Saatchi's New London Gallery Hails Britart, Chinese Revolution
- ^ Life & Times, Friday April 3 1992
- ^ Carol Vogel, Swimming With Famous Dead Sharks, New York Times, Oct 1 20606
- ^ Daily Mail, March 6, 1992
- ^ Janes Hall, Artforum, October 1999 article Neurotic Realism: Part: 1
- ^ Brooks, Richard. "Hirst's shark is sold to America", The Sunday Times, 16 January 2005. Retrieved 14 October 2008.
- ^ Davies, Serena. "Why painting is back in the frame", The Daily Telegraph, 8 January 2005. Retrieved 15 October 2008.
- ^ Imagine: The Saatchi Phenomenon, BBC One, broadcast at 2235 BST ii June 2003.
- ^ Alan Riding, The Royal Academy Puts on a New, Fresher Face, The New York Times, April 21, 1999
- ^ David Cohen, "Letter From London", Artnet.com, September 1997.
- ^ Norman Rosenthal, "The Saatchi Sensation", Prospect, October 23 1997
- ^ Kitty Hauser, “Sensation: Young British Artists from the Saatchi Collection”, New Left Review, January-February 1998
- ^ Julian Stallabrass,“High Art Lite at The Royal Academy”, Third Text, no. 42, Spring 1998
- ^ 'It's an Artrage', The Sun, 26th July 1997
- ^ Januszczak, Waldemar, The Sunday Times, September 12 1997
- ^ The Daily Mail, September 16 1997
- ^ Sewell, Brian, Evening Standard, September 18 1997
- ^ Jonathan Jones, Guardian, January 27 2005
- ^ Craig Garrett, Flash Art, March-April 2005
- ^ DeCruz, Gemma, The Triumph of Painting 2, BBC.co.uk, July 8 2005
- ^ Alpers, Svetlana, [Wheel of Fortune http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0268/is_1_44/ai_n27860608/pg_2], Artforum, September 2005, archived at FindArticles.com
- ^ Dorment, Richard, Violence, Perversity and Sadistic Genius, The Daily Telegraph
- ^ Lewis, Ben, New Life Sprung from the Dead, Sunday Telegraph, July 17 2005
- ^ Falconer, Morgan, The States They’re In, The Times, October 4 2006
- ^ Wullschlager, Jackie, An Ad-Man’s Snapshot of the US, The Financial Times, October 6 2008
- ^ Dorment, Richard, Danger – American Artists at Work, The Daily Telegraph, October 10 2006
- ^ Guner, Fisun, Bold New Portrait of America, The Metro, October 10 2006
- ^ Gavin, Francesca, Saatchi’s American Collection, BBC Collective, October 12 2006
- ^ Cumming, Laura. "Fitting home for a veteran collector, The Observer, 12 October 2008. Retrieved 14 October 2008.
- ^ Dorment, Richard, "Review: The Revolution Continues: New Art From China at the Saatchi Gallery", The Daily Telegraph, 7 October 2008. Retrieved 15 October 2008.
- ^ Brian Sewell, The Evening Standard, Oct 6, 2008
- ^ Adams, Stephen. "Revolution Continues at the Saatchi Gallery", The Daily Telegraph, 6 October 2008. Retrieved 15 October 2008.
- ^ Laura Cumming, "Fitting home for a veteran collector", The Observer, Sunday October 12 2008
- ^ Adams, Stephen, "Charles Saatchi's attention-grabbing new exhibition on Chinese art", The Daily Telegraph, 6 October 2008. Retrieved 14 October 2008.
- ^ "New Saatchi gallery in London puts China's artists on show", Trend News, 9 October 2008. Retrieved 14 October 2008.
- ^ Collet-White, Mike, Reuters, 7 October 2008. Retrieved 14 October 2008.
- ^ Adams, Stephen, Revolution Continues at the Saatchi Gallery, The Daily Telegraph, October 6 2008
- ^ Gayford, Martin, Saatchi's New London Gallery Hails Britart, Chinese Revolution, Bloomburg Muse, October 6 2008
- ^ "Saatchi gallery: A study in blandness", The Guardian, 7 October 2008. Retrieved 15 October 2008.
- ^ Letts, Quentin, If Saatchi’s New Gallery is Art, Then I’m a Chinaman!, The Daily Mail, October 9 2008
- ^ Wullschlager, Jackie. "The Stuff of People's Prayers and Dreams", Financial Times, 11 October 2008. Retrieved from saatchi-gallery.co.uk, 15 October 2008.
- ^ Jones, Dylan, Talk of the Town: We are living in an age in which art galleries are more popular than theme parks, The Independent, October 18 2008
- ^ Saatchi Gallery
- ^ Insert footnote text here
- ^ Saatchi Gallery
- ^ Saatchi Gallery
- ^ Saatchi Gallery
- ^ Interview with Annabel Fallon, SaatchiGallery.co.uk Promotes Art and Artists, PracticalECommerce.com, May 1 2008
- ^ [http://www.saatchi-gallery.co.uk/crits/ SaatchiGallery.co.uk
- ^ Saatchi Online Magazin
- ^ Saatchi Gallery website
- ^ Saatchi Gallery online
- ^ Saatchi-Gallery.co.uk
- ^ SaatchiGallery.co.uk
- ^ SaatchiGallery.co.uk
- ^ SaatchiGallery.co.uk
- ^ Saatchi Online Magazine
- ^ Scope-Art.com
- ^ Saatchi-Gallery.co.uk
- ^ Saatchi Gallery Online Magazine
- ^ Saatchi Art And Music website
- ^ Charles Saatchi answers readers’ questions in the Art Newspaper, December 2004
- ^ Blanchard, Tamsin. Sensation as ink and eggs are thrown at Hindley portrait, The Independent, 19 September 1997. Retrieved from findarticles.com, 17 October 2008
- ^ Sensation sparks New York storm, BBC.co.uk, 23 September 1999. Retrieved 17 October 2008
- ^ Rapp, Christopher, Dung Deal: Brooklyn Museum of Art's "Sensation" exhibition, National Review, 25 October 1999. Retrieved 17 October 2008
- ^ Davies, Hugh; Fenton, Ben. Whiff of Sensation hits New York, The Daily Telegraph, October 25 1999. Retrieved 17 October 2008
- ^ Rapp, Christopher, Dung Deal: Brooklyn Museum of Art's "Sensation" exhibition, National Review, 25 October 1999. Retrieved 17 October 2008
- ^ Davies, Hugh; Fenton, Ben. Whiff of Sensation hits New York, The Daily Telegraph, October 25 1999. Retrieved 17 October 2008
- ^ Sensation sparks New York storm, BBC.co.uk, 23 September 1999. Retrieved 17 October 2008
- ^ Rapp, Christopher, Dung Deal: Brooklyn Museum of Art's "Sensation" exhibition, National Review, 25 October 1999. Retrieved 17 October 2008
- ^ Davies, Hugh; Fenton, Ben. Whiff of Sensation hits New York, The Daily Telegraph, October 25 1999. Retrieved 17 October 2008
- ^ Davies, Hugh; Fenton, Ben. Whiff of Sensation hits New York, The Daily Telegraph, October 25 1999. Retrieved 17 October 2008
- ^ Davies, Hugh; Fenton, Ben. Whiff of Sensation hits New York, The Daily Telegraph, October 25 1999. Retrieved 17 October 2008
- ^ Rapp, Christopher, Dung Deal: Brooklyn Museum of Art's "Sensation" exhibition, National Review, 25 October 1999. Retrieved 17 October 2008
- ^ Sensation sparks New York storm, BBC.co.uk, 23 September 1999. Retrieved 17 October 2008
- ^ Davies, Hugh; Fenton, Ben. Whiff of Sensation hits New York, The Daily Telegraph, October 25 1999. Retrieved 17 October 2008
- ^ Vogel, Carol, Australian Museum cancels controversial art show, The New York Times, 1 December 1999. Retrieved 17 October 2008
- ^ Vogel, Carol, Australian Museum cancels controversial art show, The New York Times, 1 December 1999. Retrieved 17 October 2008
- ^ Malvern, Jack & Helen Nugent, Britart masterpieces feared lost in blaze, The Times, May 26 2004. Retreived from FindArticles.com, November 11 2008
- ^ Clennell, Andrew, Saatchi returns fire at ‘pitiful’ critics of new blood show, The Independent, April 27 2004
- ^ Brooks, Richard. "Saatchi starts Britart sell-off", The Sunday Times, p. 10. 28 August 2005
- ^ Higgins, Charlotte, Saatchi sells Britart classic for £1.5m, The Guardian, April 21 2005
- ^ Brooks, Richard. "Saatchi starts Britart sell-off", The Sunday Times, p. 10. 28 August 2005
- ^ Higgins, Charlotte, Saatchi sells Britart classic for £1.5m, The Guardian, April 21 2005
- ^ Morrison, James and Malaika Costello-Dougherty, Saatchi's new art row - this time it's personal, The Independent, May 4 2003
- ^ Higgins, Charlotte, Saatchi sells Britart classic for £1.5m, The Guardian, April 21 2005
- ^ Brooks, Richard. "Saatchi starts Britart sell-off", The Sunday Times, p. 10. 28 August 2005
- ^ Morris, Steven & Rosie Cowan, Gallery urged not to show portrait if dead addict, guardian.co.uk, Tuesday March 16 2004
- ^ Stummer, Robin, Charles Saatchi ‘abuses his hold on British art market’, Independent on Sunday, March 28 2004. Retrieved from FindArticles.com, November 11 2008.
- ^ Eyre, Hermione, Talk of the Town, The Independent on Sunday 2005-01-30. Retrieved from FindArticles.com on November 11 2008
- ^ Reynolds, Nigel, Saatchi's Latest Shock For The Art World Is Painting, The Daily Telegraph, 2004-10-04
- ^ Smith, David, The ****ing row over Saatchi’s vanishing art, The Observer, November 9 2003
- ^ Higgins, Charlotte, [http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2005/sep/28/thesaatchigallery.arts Saatchi blames 'malevolent' atmosphere and says sad goodbye to the South Bank, The Guardian, 28 September 2005. Retrieved 15 October 2008
- ^ Butt, Riazatt, Saatchi in 'deep rage' during row over toilets, The Guardian, 7 October 2005. Retrieved 15 October 2008.
- ^ Saatchi Gallery row at High Court, BBC, 6 October 2005.
- ^ Staff and agencies. Judge orders Saatchi out of County Hall, The Guardian, 21 October 2005. Retrieved 15 October 2005
- ^ Muir, Hugh. Saatchi firm wound up with debts of £1.8m, The Guardian, 9 March 2008. Retrieved 15 October 2008.
- ^ RoyalAcademy.org.uk