Saatchi Gallery
Encyclopedia
The Saatchi Gallery is a London
gallery
for contemporary art
, opened by Charles Saatchi
in 1985 in order to exhibit his collection to the public. It has occupied different premises, first in North London, then the South Bank
by the River Thames
and currently in Chelsea
. Saatchi's collection, and hence the gallery's shows, has had distinct phases, starting with U.S. artists and minimalism, moving to the Damien Hirst
-led Young British Artists
, followed by shows purely of painting and then returning to 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.
The gallery has been a major influence on art in Britain since its opening. It has also had a history of media controversy, which it has courted, 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 a springboard to launch careers.
In 2010, it was announced that the gallery would be given to the British public, becoming the Museum of Contemporary Art for London.
, London in a disused paint factory of 30000 square feet (2,787.1 m²). The first exhibition was held March—October 1985 featured many works by American minimalist Donald Judd
, American abstract painters Brice Marden
and Cy Twombly
and American pop artist Andy Warhol
. This was the first U.K. exhibition for Twombly and Marden.
These were followed throughout 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
. During September 1986 – July 1987, the gallery exhibited German artist Anselm Kiefer
and American minimalist sculptor Richard Serra
. The exhibited Serra sculptures were so large that the caretaker's flat adjoining the gallery was demolished to make room for them.
From 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 U.K. for the first time. The blend of minimalism and pop art
influenced many young artists who would later form the Young British Artists
(YBA) group.
April – October 1988 featured exhibited works by American figurative painter Leon Golub
, German painter and photographer Sigmar Polke
, and American Abstract Expressionist painter Philip Guston
. During November 1988 – April 1989 a group show featured contemporary American artists, most prominently Eric Fischl
. From April – October, the gallery hosted exhibitions of American minimalist Robert Mangold
and American conceptual artist Bruce Nauman
. From November 1989 – February 1990, a series of exhibitions featured School of London artists including Lucian Freud
, Frank Auerbach
, Leon Kossoff
and Howard Hodgkin
.
During January – July 1991, the gallery exhibited the work of American pop artist Richard Artschwager
, 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 featured a group show, including American photographer Andres Serrano
.
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 Hirst vitrine
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 1990s British art, and the symbol of Britart worldwide.
More recently Saatchi said, "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."
Saatchi's promotion of these artists dominated local art throughout the nineties and brought them to worldwide notice. Among the artists in the 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 only relented for the 1997 Sensation
show.)
Sensation opened in September at the Royal Academy
to much controversy and showed 110 works by 42 artists from the Saatchi collection. 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.
, Ron Mueck
, Noble and Webster, Dexter Dalwood
, Martin Maloney
, Chantal Joffe
, Michael Raedecker
and David Thorpe
. In 2000 Ant Noises (an anagram
of "sensation"), also in two parts, tried surer ground with work by Hirst, Lucas, Saville, Whiteread, the Chapmans, Turk, Emin and Chris Ofili
.
During this period the Collection was based at '30 Underwood St' an artist Collective of 50 studios and four galleries, the 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 the country, 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 program which provides a lending library of over 3,000 original works of art to NHS
hospitals, hospice
s and health centers throughout England, Wales and Ireland in 2002.
In April 2003, the gallery moved to County Hall
, the Greater London Council
's former headquarters on the South Bank
, occupying 40000 square feet (3,716.1 m²) of the ground floor. 1,000 guests attended 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
.
Hirst disassociated himself from the retrospective to the extent of not including it in his CV. He was angry that a Mini
car that he had decorated for charity with his trademark spots was being exhibited as serious work. The show also scuppered a prospective Hirst retrospective at Tate Modern
. He said Saatchi was "childish" and "I'm not Charles Saatchi's barrel-organ monkey ... He only recognises art with his wallet ... he believes he can affect art values with buying power, and he still believes he can do it." (In July 2004, Hirst said, "I respect Charles. There's not really a feud. If I see him, we speak, but we were never really drinking buddies.")
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.
In 2004, Saatchi's recent acquisitions (including Stella Vine
) were featured in New Blood, a show of mostly 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 most YBAs would proved "nothing but footnotes" in history, and sold works from his YBA collection, beginning in December 2004 with Hirst's iconic shark for nearly £7 million (he had bought it for £50,000 in 1991), followed by at least twelve other works by Hirst. Four works by Ron Mueck
, including key works Pinocchio and Dead Dad, went for an estimated £2.5 million. Mark Quinn
's Self, bought in 1991 for a reported £13,000, sold for £1.5 million. Saatchi also sold all but one work by Sam Taylor-Wood
(he showed five in the Sensation show). The sale was compared to his sale in the 1980s of most of his postwar American art collection. David Lee
said: "Charles Saatchi has all the hallmarks of being a dealer, not a collector. He first talks up the works and then sells them."
In 2005, Saatchi changed direction, announcing a year-long, three-part series (subsequently extended to two years and seven parts), The Triumph of Painting. The opening exhibition focused on established European painters, including Marlene Dumas
, Martin Kippenberger
, Luc Tuymans
and Peter Doig
, who had not previously received such significant U.K. exposure. Shows in the series were scheduled to introduce young painters from America like Dana Schutz
and Germans such as Matthias Weischer
, as well as Saatchi's choice of up and coming British talent.
The gallery received 800,000 visitors a year. In 2006, 1,350 schools organised group visits to the gallery.
In 2006, a selection from The Triumph of Painting was exhibited in Leeds Art Gallery
and USA Today: New American Art from the Saatchi Gallery opened at the Royal Academy
. This exhibition toured to The State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia in 2007.
On October 8, 2006, Danovo was forced into liquidation with debts around £1.8 million, having failed to pay the court-ordered penalty.
, London, near 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".
The gallery is the only completely free-entry contemporary art museum of its size in the world. Free entry is enabled by the gallery's partnership with contemporary art auction house Phillips de Pury & Company
.
The main opening exhibition was of new Chinese art, The Revolution Continues: New Art From China, bringing together the work of twenty-four young Chinese artists in a survey of painting, sculpture and installation, including Zhang Huan
, Li Songsong
, Zhang Xiaogang
, Zhang Haiying
and conceptual art
ists Sun Yuan & Peng Yu
. An accompanying book included an essay by Jiang Jiehong, director of the Centre for Chinese Visual Arts at the Birmingham Institute of Art and Design
. 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.
The show's focus was on political issues surrounding China's Cultural Revolution
and also the contemporary political context. The decision to open with The Revolution Continues was directly influenced by global interest in China
as a result of the 2008 Beijing Olympics
.
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."
Adrian Searle
in The Guardian
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."
. The gallery's head of development, Rebecca Wilson, said, "The gallery's guiding principle is to show what is being made now, the most interesting artists of today. It's about drawing people's attentions to someone who might be tomorrow's Damien Hirst." The gallery's aim is to make art more accessible to the mainstream, rather than an exclusive artworld pursuit.
, Brice Marden
, Cy Twombly
and Andy Warhol
. This was the first UK exhibition for Twombly and Marden.
1986 – Exhibits Anselm Kiefer
and Richard Serra
.
1987 – The New York Art Now show introduces American artists including Jeff Koons
, Robert Gober
, Ashley Bickerton
, Carroll Dunham and Phillip Taaffe to the UK.
1988–1991 ¬– Introduces artists including Leon Golub
, Phillip Guston, Sigmar Polke
, Bruce Nauman
, Richard Artschwager and Cindy Sherman
to London.
1992 – Curates its first Young British Artists show Damien Hirst
, Marc Quinn
, Rachel Whiteread
, Gavin Turk
, Glenn Brown
, Sarah Lucas
, Jenny Saville
and Gary Hume
were all presented in these exhibitions.
1997 – Opens Sensation
: Young British Art from the Saatchi Gallery at the Royal Academy
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 for a contemporary exhibition.
1999 – Sensation at the Hamburger Bahnhof
in Berlin.
1999 – Sensation tours to Brooklyn Museum of Art.
1999 – Donates 100 artworks to the Arts Council of Great Britain
Collection, which operates a ‘lending library’ to museums and galleries around Britain.
2000 – Donates 40 works through the National Arts Collection Fund to eight museums across Britain.
2000 – Begins a series of one person shows of major international figures mostly new to Britain, including Duane Hanson
, Boris Mikhailov
and Alex Katz
. Shows entitled Young Americans and Eurovision introduce artists 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, showing photography and other related works where traditional boundaries are blurred as photographs influence paintings, and paintings influence photographs. The show included work by many other artists new in the UK.
2002 – Donates 50 artworks to the Paintings in Hospitals program which lends over 3,000 originals to NHS hospitals, hospices and health centers throughout England, Wales and Ireland.
2003 – Moves to County Hall
, the Greater London Council
’s former headquarters on the South Bank
, creating a 40000 square feet (3,716.1 m²) exhibition space. The opening show included a Hirst retrospective as well as works by other YBAs such as the Chapman Brothers, Tracey Emin
, Jenny Saville
and Sarah Lucas
.
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 – Launches a year-long, three-part series exhibition, The Triumph of Painting. The opening exhibition focuses on 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 – Expanded into the Duke of York's Headquarters building in Chelsea
. This put a halt to London
shows while the new premises were being prepared.
2005 – Exhibited a selection of works from The Triumph of Painting in Leeds Art Gallery
.
2006 – During the period between premises, the Saatchi Online website began an open-access section where artists could upload works of art and their biographies onto personal pages. The site currently has over 100,000 artist profiles and receives over 68 million hits a day, ranking at 316 in the Alexa Top 50,000 World Websites.
2006 – 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 launched a new section within Saatchi Online exclusively for art students, called Stuart. Art students from all over the world were able to create home pages with images of their art, photos, lists of their favorite artists, books, films and television
shows, and links to their friends' pages. Other sections on Saatchi Online include; chat, 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
.
2007 – Added a new online feature called "Museums around the World" hosting over 2,800 museums, showing collection highlights, exhibitions and other relevant information. 2,700 Colleges and Universities from around the world also offer 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 – Reopens on the October 9 in the entire 70000 square feet (6,503.2 m²) Duke of York's Headquarters building on Kings Road
in Chelsea
, London
, with The Revolution Continues: New Art from China.
ranked Saatchi Gallery among the leading 300 websites in the world. In November 2007 it was estimated that professional artists registered sell over $100 million of art directly from the site annually. In 2008 Saatchi Online launched a saleroom section that hosts over 84,000 entries from artists wishing to sell their work. The site takes no commission from either buyer or seller.
In October 2006 the Saatchi Gallery in association with The Guardian
newspaper opened the first ever reader-curated exhibition, showing the work of 10 Saatchi Online artists. Users may also be featured in the Saatchi Online stall at various art fairs. In November 2006 the gallery launched a new section exclusively for art students, called Stuart. Stuart also hosts an annual competition, 4 New Sensations, in association with Channel 4
.
Other spaces on Saatchi Online including a forum, live chat, blogs, videos, photography
and illustration
. The site also publishes grant and funding opportunities. A daily magazine features 24 hour news updated every 15 minutes, as well as articles and reviews by art critics such as Jerry Saltz
and Matthew Collings
. The site recently began broadcasting an online television
channel with video access to art openings, artists' studios, performances and interviews.
Interactive features include the weekly Showdown competition, where users can win an exhibition spot, the Online Studio for creating art (each month a critic selects a winner in whose name a £500 donation is made to a children's charity) a Crits section in which artists can comment on each others' work, and the Street Art section for graffiti, murals, and performance art.
"Museums around the World" features over 3,300 museums. These include the Metropolitan Museum of Art
, The Museum of Modern Art
, the Tate
, the London National Gallery, the Louvre
, and the State Hermitage, as well as small museums.
As of July 2008, 4,300 art dealers and commercial galleries have profiles on the site. Over 2,800 universities and colleges have uploaded prospectuses and student information, including Yale
, Harvard, the University of Cambridge
and the University of Oxford
, as well as local art colleges. Over 1,500 schools have uploaded up pupils’ works. Schools range from Eton College
to small Primary and High schools. The Portfolio School Art Prize is open to schools with pupils between 5 and 17.
A Mandarin language version allows Chinese artists to upload their profiles in Chinese and translates them into English. There is also a Chinese language chatroom, forum, and blog. The site provides automated translations into many languages; Russian, Spanish and Portuguese versions of the site are planned.
----
County Hall
Duke of York's HQ
forthcoming:
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
gallery
Art gallery
An art gallery or art museum is a building or space for the exhibition of art, usually visual art.Museums can be public or private, but what distinguishes a museum is the ownership of a collection...
for contemporary art
Contemporary art
Contemporary art can be defined variously as art produced at this present point in time or art produced since World War II. The definition of the word contemporary would support the first view, but museums of contemporary art commonly define their collections as consisting of art produced...
, opened by Charles Saatchi
Charles Saatchi
Charles Saatchi is the co-founder with his brother Maurice of the global advertising agency Saatchi & Saatchi, and led that business - the world's largest advertising agency in the 1980s - until they were forced out in 1995. In the same year the Saatchi brothers formed a new agency called M&C...
in 1985 in order to exhibit his collection to the public. It has occupied different premises, first in North London, then the South Bank
South Bank
South Bank is an area of London, England located immediately adjacent to the south side of the River Thames. It forms a long and narrow section of riverside development that is within the London Borough of Lambeth to the border with the London Borough of Southwark and was formerly simply known as...
by the River Thames
River Thames
The River Thames flows through southern England. It is the longest river entirely in England and the second longest in the United Kingdom. While it is best known because its lower reaches flow through central London, the river flows alongside several other towns and cities, including Oxford,...
and currently in Chelsea
Chelsea, London
Chelsea is an area of West London, England, bounded to the south by the River Thames, where its frontage runs from Chelsea Bridge along the Chelsea Embankment, Cheyne Walk, Lots Road and Chelsea Harbour. Its eastern boundary was once defined by the River Westbourne, which is now in a pipe above...
. Saatchi's collection, and hence the gallery's shows, has had distinct phases, starting with U.S. artists and minimalism, moving to the Damien Hirst
Damien Hirst
Damien Steven Hirst is an English artist, entrepreneur and art collector. He is the most prominent member of the group known as the Young British Artists , who dominated the art scene in Britain during the 1990s. He is internationally renowned, and is reportedly Britain's richest living artist,...
-led Young British Artists
Young British Artists
Young British Artists or YBAs is the name given to a loose group of visual artists who first began to exhibit together in London, in 1988...
, followed by shows purely of painting and then returning to 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.
The gallery has been a major influence on art in Britain since its opening. It has also had a history of media controversy, which it has courted, 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 a springboard to launch careers.
In 2010, it was announced that the gallery would be given to the British public, becoming the Museum of Contemporary Art for London.
Opening and US art
The Saatchi Gallery opened in 1985 in Boundary Road, St John's WoodSt John's Wood
St John's Wood is a district of north-west London, England, in the City of Westminster, and at the north-west end of Regent's Park. It is approximately 2.5 miles north-west of Charing Cross. Once part of the Great Middlesex Forest, it was later owned by the Knights of St John of Jerusalem...
, London in a disused paint factory of 30000 square feet (2,787.1 m²). The first exhibition was held March—October 1985 featured many works by American minimalist Donald Judd
Donald Judd
Donald Clarence Judd was an American artist associated with minimalism . In his work, Judd sought autonomy and clarity for the constructed object and the space created by it, ultimately achieving a rigorously democratic presentation without compositional hierarchy...
, American abstract painters Brice Marden
Brice Marden
Brice Marden , is an American artist, generally described as Minimalist, although his work defies specific categorization. He lives in New York and Eagles Mere.Marden is represented by the Matthew Marks Gallery.-Life:...
and Cy Twombly
Cy Twombly
Edwin Parker "Cy" Twombly, Jr. was an American artist well known for his large-scale, freely scribbled, calligraphic-style graffiti paintings, on solid fields of mostly gray, tan, or off-white colors...
and American pop artist Andy Warhol
Andy Warhol
Andrew Warhola , known as Andy Warhol, was an American painter, printmaker, and filmmaker who was a leading figure in the visual art movement known as pop art...
. This was the first U.K. exhibition for Twombly and Marden.
These were followed throughout December 1985 – July 1986 by an exhibition of works by American sculptor John Chamberlain
John Chamberlain
John Angus Chamberlain is an American sculptor.Born in Rochester, Indiana, John Chamberlain spent much of his youth in Chicago. After serving in the navy from 1943 to 1946, he attended the Art Institute of Chicago and Black Mountain College...
, American minimalists
Minimalism
Minimalism describes movements in various forms of art and design, especially visual art and music, where the work is set out to expose the essence, essentials or identity of a subject through eliminating all non-essential forms, features or concepts...
Dan Flavin
Dan Flavin
Dan Flavin was an American minimalist artist famous for creating sculptural objects and installations from commercially available fluorescent light fixtures.-Early life and career:...
, Sol LeWitt
Sol LeWitt
Solomon "Sol" LeWitt was an American artist linked to various movements, including Conceptual art and Minimalism....
, Robert Ryman
Robert Ryman
Robert Ryman is an American painter identified with the movements of monochrome painting, minimalism, and conceptual art. He is best known for abstract, white-on-white paintings. He lives and works in New York.-Early life and career:...
, Frank Stella
Frank Stella
Frank Stella is an American painter and printmaker, significant within the art movements of minimalism and post-painterly abstraction.-Biography:...
, and Carl Andre
Carl Andre
Carl Andre is an American minimalist artist recognized for his ordered linear format and grid format sculptures. His sculptures range from large public artworks to more intimate tile patterns arranged on the floor of an exhibition space Carl Andre (born September 16, 1935) is an American...
. During September 1986 – July 1987, the gallery exhibited German artist Anselm Kiefer
Anselm Kiefer
Anselm Kiefer is a German painter and sculptor. He studied with Joseph Beuys and Peter Dreher during the 1970s. His works incorporate materials such as straw, ash, clay, lead, and shellac...
and American minimalist sculptor Richard Serra
Richard Serra
Richard Serra is an American minimalist sculptor and video artist known for working with large-scale assemblies of sheet metal. Serra was involved in the Process Art Movement.-Early life and education:...
. The exhibited Serra sculptures were so large that the caretaker's flat adjoining the gallery was demolished to make room for them.
From September 1987 – January 1988, the Saatchi Gallery mounted two exhibitions entitled New York Art Now, featuring Jeff Koons
Jeff Koons
Jeffrey "Jeff" Koons is an American artist known for his reproductions of banal objects—such as balloon animals produced in stainless steel with mirror finish surfaces....
, Robert Gober
Robert Gober
Robert Gober is an American sculptor. His work is often related to domestic and familiar objects such as sinks, doors, and legs.-Life and work:...
, Peter Halley
Peter Halley
-Early Life and Career:Halley first came to prominence as a result of the geometric paintings rendered in intense day-glo colours that he produced in the early 1980s. His practice as an artist is usually associated with minimalism, neo-geo, and neo-conceptualism...
, Haim Steinbach
Haim Steinbach
Haim Steinbach is an [American] artist, who lives in New York City. Many of his works consist of arrangements of mass produced objects or readymades.-Life and work:...
, Philip Taaffe
Philip Taaffe
Philip Taaffe is an American artistTaaffe was born in Elizabeth, New Jersey and studied at the Cooper Union in New York, gaining a Bachelor of Fine Arts in 1977....
and Caroll Dunham. This exhibition introduced these artists to the U.K. for the first time. The blend of minimalism and pop art
Pop art
Pop art is an art movement that emerged in the mid 1950s in Britain and in the late 1950s in the United States. Pop art challenged tradition by asserting that an artist's use of the mass-produced visual commodities of popular culture is contiguous with the perspective of fine art...
influenced many young artists who would later form the Young British Artists
Young British Artists
Young British Artists or YBAs is the name given to a loose group of visual artists who first began to exhibit together in London, in 1988...
(YBA) group.
April – October 1988 featured exhibited works by American figurative painter Leon Golub
Leon Golub
Leon Golub was an American painter. He was born in Chicago, Illinois, where he also studied, receiving his BA at the University of Chicago in 1942, his BFA and MFA at the Art Institute of Chicago in 1949 and 1950, respectively.He was married to and collaborated with the artist Nancy Spero...
, German painter and photographer Sigmar Polke
Sigmar Polke
Sigmar Polke was a German painter and photographer.Polke experimented with a wide range of styles, subject matter and materials. In the 1970s, he concentrated on photography, returning to paint in the 1980s, when he produced abstract works created by chance through chemical reactions between paint...
, and American Abstract Expressionist painter Philip Guston
Philip Guston
Philip Guston was a notable painter and printmaker in the New York School, which included many of the Abstract expressionists, such as Jackson Pollock and Willem De Kooning...
. During November 1988 – April 1989 a group show featured contemporary American artists, most prominently Eric Fischl
Eric Fischl
Eric Fischl is an American painter, sculptor and printmaker.-Early life:Fischl was born in New York City and grew up on suburban Long Island; his family moved to Phoenix, Arizona in 1967...
. From April – October, the gallery hosted exhibitions of American minimalist Robert Mangold
Robert Mangold
Robert Mangold is an American minimalist artist.- Works :“Robert Mangold’s paintings,” wrote Michael Kimmelman in the New York Times in 1997, “are more complicated to describe than they seem, which is partly what’s good about them: the way they invite intense scrutiny, which, in the nature of good...
and American conceptual artist Bruce Nauman
Bruce Nauman
Bruce Nauman is a contemporary American artist. His practice spans a broad range of media including sculpture, photography, neon, video, drawing, printmaking, and performance. Nauman lives in Galisteo, New Mexico....
. From November 1989 – February 1990, a series of exhibitions featured School of London artists including Lucian Freud
Lucian Freud
Lucian Michael Freud, OM, CH was a British painter. Known chiefly for his thickly impasted portrait and figure paintings, he was widely considered the pre-eminent British artist of his time...
, Frank Auerbach
Frank Auerbach
Frank Helmut Auerbach is a painter born in Germany although he has been a naturalised British citizen since 1947.-Biography:Auerbach was born in Berlin, the son of Max Auerbach, a patent lawyer, and Charlotte Nora Burchardt, who had trained as an artist...
, Leon Kossoff
Leon Kossoff
Leon Kossoff is a British expressionist painter, known for portraits, life drawings and cityscapes of London, England....
and Howard Hodgkin
Howard Hodgkin
Sir Gordon Howard Eliot Hodgkin CH, CBE is a British painter and printmaker. His work is most often associated with abstraction.-Early life:...
.
During January – July 1991, the gallery exhibited the work of American pop artist Richard Artschwager
Richard Artschwager
Richard Artschwager is an American painter, illustrator and sculptor, born in 1923 in Washington, D.C.. Artschwager is best known for his stylistic independence; although he has associations with the Pop Art movement, Conceptual art and Minimalism....
, American photographer Cindy Sherman
Cindy Sherman
Cindy Sherman is an American photographer and film director, best known for her conceptual portraits. Sherman currently lives and works in New York City. In 1995, she was the recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship. She is represented by Sprüth Magers Berlin London in and Metro Pictures gallery in...
, and British installation artist Richard Wilson
Richard Wilson (sculptor)
Richard Wilson is a sculptor, installation artist and musician.Born in Islington, in London, he studied at the London College of Printing, Hornsey College of Art and Reading University...
. 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 featured a group show, including American photographer Andres Serrano
Andres Serrano
Andres Serrano is an American photographer and artist who has become notorious through his photos of corpses and his use of feces and bodily fluids in his work, notably his controversial work "Piss Christ", a red-tinged photograph of a crucifix submerged in a glass container of what was purported...
.
Young British Artists
In an abrupt move, Saatchi sold much of his collection of U.S. art, and invested in a new generation of British artists, exhibiting them in shows with the title Young British Artists. The core of the artists had been brought together by Damien HirstDamien Hirst
Damien Steven Hirst is an English artist, entrepreneur and art collector. He is the most prominent member of the group known as the Young British Artists , who dominated the art scene in Britain during the 1990s. He is internationally renowned, and is reportedly Britain's richest living artist,...
in 1988 in a seminal show called Freeze
Freeze (exhibition)
Freeze is the title of an art exhibition that took place in July 1988 in an empty London Port Authority building at Surrey Docks in London Docklands. Its main organiser was Damien Hirst. It was significant in the subsequent development of the Young British Artists.-Organisation:Freeze was...
. 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 Hirst vitrine
Display case
A display case is a cabinet with one or often more transparent glass sides and/or top, used to display objects for viewing, for example in an exhibition, museum, house, in retail, or a restaurant. Often labels are included with the displayed objects, providing information...
containing a shark
Shark
Sharks are a type of fish with a full cartilaginous skeleton and a highly streamlined body. The earliest known sharks date from more than 420 million years ago....
in formaldehyde
Formaldehyde
Formaldehyde is an organic compound with the formula CH2O. It is the simplest aldehyde, hence its systematic name methanal.Formaldehyde is a colorless gas with a characteristic pungent odor. It is an important precursor to many other chemical compounds, especially for polymers...
and entitled The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living
The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living
The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living is an artwork created in 1991 by Damien Hirst, an English artist and a leading member of the "Young British Artists" . It consists of a tiger shark preserved in formaldehyde in a vitrine. It was originally commissioned in 1991 by...
. This was funded by Saatchi. It has become the iconic work of 1990s British art, and the symbol of Britart worldwide.
Saatchi's promotion of these artists dominated local art throughout the nineties and brought them to worldwide notice. Among the artists in the series of shows were Jenny Saville
Jenny Saville
Jenny Saville is a contemporary British painter; best known as one of the Young British Artists. She is known for her large-scale painted depictions of naked women.-Life and career:Saville works and lives in Oxford, England...
, Sarah Lucas
Sarah Lucas
Sarah Lucas is an English artist. She is part of the generation of Young British Artists who emerged during the 1990s...
, Gavin Turk
Gavin Turk
Gavin Turk is a British artist and one of the Young British Artists . He often uses his own image in life-size sculptures of famous people.-Life and work:...
, Jake and Dinos Chapman
Jake and Dinos Chapman
Iakovos "Jake" Chapman and Konstantinos "Dinos" Chapman are English visual artists, often known as the Chapman Brothers, who work together as a collaborative sibling duo...
and Rachel Whiteread
Rachel Whiteread
Rachel Whiteread, CBE is an English artist, best known for her sculptures, which typically take the form of casts. She won the annual Turner Prize in 1993—the first woman to win the prize....
. (Tracey Emin
Tracey Emin
Tracey Karima Emin RA is a British artist of English and Turkish Cypriot origin. She is part of the group known as Britartists or YBAs ....
was initially hostile to Saatchi and only relented for the 1997 Sensation
Sensation exhibition
Sensation was an exhibition of the collection of contemporary art owned by Charles Saatchi, including many works by Young British Artists, which first took place 18 September – 28 December 1997 at the Royal Academy of Art in London and later toured to Berlin and New York...
show.)
Sensation opened in September at the Royal Academy
Royal Academy
The Royal Academy of Arts is an art institution based in Burlington House on Piccadilly, London. The Royal Academy of Arts has a unique position in being an independent, privately funded institution led by eminent artists and architects whose purpose is to promote the creation, enjoyment and...
to much controversy and showed 110 works by 42 artists from the Saatchi collection. In 1999 Sensation toured to The National Galerie at the Hamburger Bahnhof
Hamburger Bahnhof
Hamburger Bahnhof is a former railway station in Berlin, Germany, on Invalidenstraße in the Moabit district opposite the Charité hospital. Today it serves as the Museum für Gegenwart , a contemporary art museum....
in Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
in the autumn, and then to the Brooklyn Museum
Brooklyn Museum
The Brooklyn Museum is an encyclopedia art museum located in the New York City borough of Brooklyn. At 560,000 square feet, the museum holds New York City's second largest art collection with roughly 1.5 million works....
of Art, New York, creating unprecedented political and media controversy and becoming a touchstone for debate about the "morality" of contemporary art.
Neurotic Realism and philanthropy
Meanwhile other shows with different themes were held in the gallery itself. In 1998 Saatchi launched a two part exhibition entitled Neurotic Realism. Though widely attacked by critics, the exhibition included many future international stars including; Cecily BrownCecily Brown
Cecily Brown, born 1969 in London, is a British painter. She has a great respect for art history and her works reveal her reverence and high regard for artists such as Francisco de Goya, Nicolas Poussin, Willem de Kooning, and Joan Mitchell while incorporating into her works her distinct female...
, Ron Mueck
Ron Mueck
Ronald "Ron" Mueck is an Australian hyperrealist sculptor working in the United Kingdom.-Early work:Ron Mueck began his career working on the Australian children's television program Shirl's Neighbourhood...
, Noble and Webster, Dexter Dalwood
Dexter Dalwood
Dexter Dalwood is an artist based in London. He attended Humphry Davy School in his early life. Dalwood received his BA from Central St Martins College of Art, London, in 1985...
, Martin Maloney
Martin Maloney
Martin Maloney is a contemporary English artist.-Life and work:Martin Maloney was born in London. He attended the University of Sussex 1980–83, Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design 1988–91 and Goldsmiths College 1991–93.Martin Maloney practises deliberately "bad"...
, Chantal Joffe
Chantal Joffe
Chantal Joffe is an English artist based in London. Her often large-scale paintings generally depict women and children. In 2006 she received the prestigious Charles Wollaston Award from the Royal Academy.-Life and education:...
, Michael Raedecker
Michael Raedecker
Michael Raedecker is a Dutch artist based in London.Raedecker studied fashion at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie in Amsterdam from 1985-1990...
and David Thorpe
David Thorpe
David Thorpe may refer to:* David Thorpe , English artist* David Thorpe, American music writer, satirist, and columnist for Something Awful and the Boston Phoenix* David Thorpe , Australian rules footballer...
. In 2000 Ant Noises (an anagram
Anagram
An anagram is a type of word play, the result of rearranging the letters of a word or phrase to produce a new word or phrase, using all the original letters exactly once; e.g., orchestra = carthorse, A decimal point = I'm a dot in place, Tom Marvolo Riddle = I am Lord Voldemort. Someone who...
of "sensation"), also in two parts, tried surer ground with work by Hirst, Lucas, Saville, Whiteread, the Chapmans, Turk, Emin and Chris Ofili
Chris Ofili
Chris Ofili is a Turner Prize winning British painter best known for artworks referencing aspects of his Nigerian heritage, particularly his incorporation of elephant dung. He was one of the Young British Artists, and is now based in Trinidad.-Early life:Ofilli was born in Manchester. He had a...
.
During this period the Collection was based at '30 Underwood St' an artist Collective of 50 studios and four galleries, the gallery made several large philanthropic donations including 100 artworks in 1999 to the Arts Council of Great Britain
Arts Council of Great Britain
The Arts Council of Great Britain was a non-departmental public body dedicated to the promotion of the fine arts in Great Britain. The Arts Council of Great Britain was divided in 1994 to form the Arts Council of England , the Scottish Arts Council, and the Arts Council of Wales...
Collection, which operates a "lending library" to museums and galleries around the country, 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 program which provides a lending library of over 3,000 original works of art to NHS
National Health Service
The National Health Service is the shared name of three of the four publicly funded healthcare systems in the United Kingdom. They provide a comprehensive range of health services, the vast majority of which are free at the point of use to residents of the United Kingdom...
hospitals, hospice
Hospice
Hospice is a type of care and a philosophy of care which focuses on the palliation of a terminally ill patient's symptoms.In the United States and Canada:*Gentiva Health Services, national provider of hospice and home health services...
s and health centers throughout England, Wales and Ireland in 2002.
County Hall
County Hall, London
County Hall is a building in Lambeth, London, which was the headquarters of London County Council and later the Greater London Council . The building is on the bank of the River Thames, just north of Westminster Bridge, facing west toward the City of Westminster, and close to the Palace of...
, the Greater London Council
Greater London Council
The Greater London Council was the top-tier local government administrative body for Greater London from 1965 to 1986. It replaced the earlier London County Council which had covered a much smaller area...
's former headquarters on the South Bank
South Bank
South Bank is an area of London, England located immediately adjacent to the south side of the River Thames. It forms a long and narrow section of riverside development that is within the London Borough of Lambeth to the border with the London Borough of Southwark and was formerly simply known as...
, occupying 40000 square feet (3,716.1 m²) of the ground floor. 1,000 guests attended the launch, which included a "nude happening" of 200 naked people staged by artist Spencer Tunick
Spencer Tunick
Spencer Tunick is an American photographer. Tunick is best known for organizing large-scale nude shoots. Since 1994 he has photographed over 75 human installations around the world.-Biography:...
.
The opening exhibition included a retrospective by Damien Hirst
Damien Hirst
Damien Steven Hirst is an English artist, entrepreneur and art collector. He is the most prominent member of the group known as the Young British Artists , who dominated the art scene in Britain during the 1990s. He is internationally renowned, and is reportedly Britain's richest living artist,...
, as well as work by other YBAs
Young British Artists
Young British Artists or YBAs is the name given to a loose group of visual artists who first began to exhibit together in London, in 1988...
, such as Jake and Dinos Chapman
Jake and Dinos Chapman
Iakovos "Jake" Chapman and Konstantinos "Dinos" Chapman are English visual artists, often known as the Chapman Brothers, who work together as a collaborative sibling duo...
and Tracey Emin
Tracey Emin
Tracey Karima Emin RA is a British artist of English and Turkish Cypriot origin. She is part of the group known as Britartists or YBAs ....
alongside some longer-established artists including John Bratby
John Bratby
John Randall Bratby was an English painter who founded the kitchen sink realism style of art that was influential in the late 1950s....
, Paula Rego
Paula Rego
Paula Rego is a painter born in Portugal although she is a naturalised British citizen.-Biography:Rego was born in the Portuguese capital Lisbon, the daughter of an electrical engineer who worked for the Marconi Company. Although this gave her a comfortable middle class home, the family was...
and Patrick Caulfield
Patrick Caulfield
Patrick Joseph Caulfield, CBE, RA was an English painter and printmaker known for his bold canvases, which often incorporated elements of Photorealism within a pared down scene.-Life and work:...
.
Mini
The Mini is a small car that was made by the British Motor Corporation and its successors from 1959 until 2000. The original is considered a British icon of the 1960s, and its space-saving front-wheel-drive layout influenced a generation of car-makers...
car that he had decorated for charity with his trademark spots was being exhibited as serious work. The show also scuppered a prospective Hirst retrospective at Tate Modern
Tate Modern
Tate Modern is a modern art gallery located in London, England. It is Britain's national gallery of international modern art and forms part of the Tate group . It is the most-visited modern art gallery in the world, with around 4.7 million visitors per year...
. He said Saatchi was "childish" and "I'm not Charles Saatchi's barrel-organ monkey ... He only recognises art with his wallet ... he believes he can affect art values with buying power, and he still believes he can do it." (In July 2004, Hirst said, "I respect Charles. There's not really a feud. If I see him, we speak, but we were never really drinking buddies.")
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
Jake and Dinos Chapman
Iakovos "Jake" Chapman and Konstantinos "Dinos" Chapman are English visual artists, often known as the Chapman Brothers, who work together as a collaborative sibling duo...
'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.
In 2004, Saatchi's recent acquisitions (including Stella Vine
Stella Vine
Stella Vine is an English artist, who lives and works in London. Her work is figurative painting with subject matter drawn from either her personal life of family, friends and school, or rock stars, royalty and celebrities.After a difficult relationship with her stepfather, she left home and in...
) were featured in New Blood, a show of mostly 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 most YBAs would proved "nothing but footnotes" in history, and sold works from his YBA collection, beginning in December 2004 with Hirst's iconic shark for nearly £7 million (he had bought it for £50,000 in 1991), followed by at least twelve other works by Hirst. Four works by Ron Mueck
Ron Mueck
Ronald "Ron" Mueck is an Australian hyperrealist sculptor working in the United Kingdom.-Early work:Ron Mueck began his career working on the Australian children's television program Shirl's Neighbourhood...
, including key works Pinocchio and Dead Dad, went for an estimated £2.5 million. Mark Quinn
Mark Quinn
Mark David Quinn is a former Major League Baseball outfielder and right-handed batter who played for the Kansas City Royals. Quinn was drafted in the 11th round of the 1995 Amateur Draft after playing two seasons for the Rice University Owls. He played for the Royals between 1999-2002...
's Self, bought in 1991 for a reported £13,000, sold for £1.5 million. Saatchi also sold all but one work by Sam Taylor-Wood
Sam Taylor-Wood
Samantha "Sam" Taylor-Wood OBE , born Samantha Taylor, is an English filmmaker, photographer, and visual artist. Her directorial feature film debut came in 2009 with Nowhere Boy, a film based on the childhood experiences of The Beatles songwriter and singer John Lennon...
(he showed five in the Sensation show). The sale was compared to his sale in the 1980s of most of his postwar American art collection. David Lee
David Lee (art critic)
David Lee is an outspoken, English, contemporary, art critic—condemning conceptual art in general and the Turner Prize in particular...
said: "Charles Saatchi has all the hallmarks of being a dealer, not a collector. He first talks up the works and then sells them."
In 2005, Saatchi changed direction, announcing a year-long, three-part series (subsequently extended to two years and seven parts), The Triumph of Painting. The opening exhibition focused on established European painters, including Marlene Dumas
Marlene Dumas
Marlene Dumas is a South African born artist and painter who lives and works in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Stressing both the physical reality of the human body and its psychological value, Dumas tends...
, Martin Kippenberger
Martin Kippenberger
Martin Kippenberger was a German artist known for his extremely prolific output in a wide range of styles and media as well as his provocative, jocular and hard-drinking public persona....
, Luc Tuymans
Luc Tuymans
Luc Tuymans is a contemporary artist who lives and works in Antwerp, Belgium. Tuymans is considered one of the most influential painters working today. His signature figurative paintings transform mediated film, television, and print sources into examinations of history and memory.-Life:Tuymans...
and Peter Doig
Peter Doig
Peter Doig is a contemporary artist born in Scotland. In 2007, a painting of Doig's, entitled White Canoe, sold at Sotheby's for $11.3 million, then an auction record for a living European artist.-Early life:...
, who had not previously received such significant U.K. exposure. Shows in the series were scheduled to introduce young painters from America like Dana Schutz
Dana Schutz
Dana Schutz is a painter in New York.She graduated with a BFA the Cleveland Institute of Art in 2000 and an MFA from Columbia University in 2002. She grew up in Livonia, Michigan a suburb of Detroit and graduated in 1995 from Adlai E...
and Germans such as Matthias Weischer
Matthias Weischer
Matthias Weischer is a painter living in Leipzig. Weischer is considered to be part of the New Leipzig School.- Life :...
, as well as Saatchi's choice of up and coming British talent.
The gallery received 800,000 visitors a year. In 2006, 1,350 schools organised group visits to the gallery.
In 2006, a selection from The Triumph of Painting was exhibited in Leeds Art Gallery
Leeds Art Gallery
Leeds Art Gallery in Leeds, West Yorkshire, England is a museum whose collection of 20th century British Art is recognised by the British government as a collection "of national importance". Its collection also includes 19th century and earlier art works. The gallery opened on 3 October 1888 as...
and USA Today: New American Art from the Saatchi Gallery opened at the Royal Academy
Royal Academy
The Royal Academy of Arts is an art institution based in Burlington House on Piccadilly, London. The Royal Academy of Arts has a unique position in being an independent, privately funded institution led by eminent artists and architects whose purpose is to promote the creation, enjoyment and...
. This exhibition toured to The State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia in 2007.
Court case
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. On 28 September 2005, the gallery announced a move to new and larger premises in the Duke of York's Headquarters, Chelsea, though Saatchi said it was "tragic" to leave. On October 6, 2005, a court case began, brought by the owners and landlord of County Hall, the Shirayama Shokusan Company and Cadogan Leisure Investments, against Danovo (Saatchi was its majority shareholder), trading as the Saatchi Gallery, for alleged breach of conditions, including a two-for-one ticket offer in Time Out magazine and exhibition of work in unauthorized areas. The judgment went against the gallery; the judge, Sir Donald Ratee, and ordered the gallery off the premises because of a "deliberate disregard" of the landlords' rights.On October 8, 2006, Danovo was forced into liquidation with debts around £1.8 million, having failed to pay the court-ordered penalty.
Duke of York's HQ
On October 9, 2008 the gallery opened its new premises, one of "the most beautiful art spaces in London", in the 70000 square feet (6,503.2 m²) Duke of York's HQ on Kings RoadKings Road
King's Road or Kings Road, known popularly as The King's Road or The KR, is a major, well-known street stretching through Chelsea and Fulham, both in west London, England...
, London, near Sloane Square
Sloane Square
Sloane Square is a small hard-landscaped square on the boundaries of the fashionable London districts of Knightsbridge, Belgravia and Chelsea, located southwest of Charing Cross, in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. The square is part of the Hans Town area designed in 1771 by Henry...
. 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".
The gallery is the only completely free-entry contemporary art museum of its size in the world. Free entry is enabled by the gallery's partnership with contemporary art auction house Phillips de Pury & Company
Phillips de Pury & Company
Phillips de Pury & Company is an auction house and art dealership, with offices in London, New York, Geneva, Berlin, Brussels, Los Angeles, Milan, Munich and Paris. Phillips conducts auctions in New York, London and Geneva in the areas of Contemporary Art, Photography, 20-21st Century Design, Art...
.
The main opening exhibition was of new Chinese art, The Revolution Continues: New Art From China, bringing together the work of twenty-four young Chinese artists in a survey of painting, sculpture and installation, including Zhang Huan
Zhang Huan
Zhang Huan is a Chinese artist based in Shanghai and New York. He made his BA at the He Nan University in Kai Feng and his MA at the China Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing...
, Li Songsong
Li Songsong
Li Songsong is a painter working in Beijing.Li Songsong was born in Beijing. His paintings recreate public resource images of modern Chinese history, such as the National People's Congress. Li works on large scale canvases with oil paint...
, Zhang Xiaogang
Zhang Xiaogang
Zhang Xiaogang is a contemporary Chinese symbolist and surrealist painter. Paintings in his Bloodline series are often monochromatic, stylized portraits of Chinese people, usually with large, dark-pupiled eyes, posed in a stiff manner deliberately reminiscent of family portraits from the 1950s...
, Zhang Haiying
Zhang Haiying
Zhang Haiying is an artist based in Songzhuang, Beijing, China.Zhang was born in Beijing. He is a painter. His Anti-Vice Campaign series is based on images taken from the internet of women involved in the Chinese government’s crackdown on prostitution and pornography...
and conceptual art
Conceptual art
Conceptual art is art in which the concept or idea involved in the work take precedence over traditional aesthetic and material concerns. Many of the works, sometimes called installations, of the artist Sol LeWitt may be constructed by anyone simply by following a set of written instructions...
ists Sun Yuan & Peng Yu
Sun Yuan & Peng Yu
Sun Yuan and Peng Yu are artists living and working collaboratively in Beijing. Sun was born in Beijing and Peng in Heilongjiang...
. An accompanying book included an essay by Jiang Jiehong, director of the Centre for Chinese Visual Arts at the Birmingham Institute of Art and Design
Birmingham Institute of Art and Design
The Birmingham Institute of Art and Design is the largest British university art and design teaching and research centre outside London. It is a faculty of Birmingham City University and the largest, most successful department of the university.-History:BIAD dates back, in various incarnations, to...
. 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.
The show's focus was on political issues surrounding China's Cultural Revolution
Cultural Revolution
The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, commonly known as the Cultural Revolution , was a socio-political movement that took place in the People's Republic of China from 1966 through 1976...
and also the contemporary political context. The decision to open with The Revolution Continues was directly influenced by global interest in China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
as a result of the 2008 Beijing Olympics
2008 Summer Olympics
The 2008 Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the XXIX Olympiad, was a major international multi-sport event that took place in Beijing, China, from August 8 to August 24, 2008. A total of 11,028 athletes from 204 National Olympic Committees competed in 28 sports and 302 events...
.
Jackie Wullschlager in the Financial Times
Financial Times
The Financial Times is an international business newspaper. It is a morning daily newspaper published in London and printed in 24 cities around the world. Its primary rival is the Wall Street Journal, published in New York City....
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
Turner Prize
The Turner Prize, named after the painter J. M. W. Turner, is an annual prize presented to a British visual artist under the age of 50. Awarding the prize is organised by the Tate gallery and staged at Tate Britain. Since its beginnings in 1984 it has become the United Kingdom's most publicised...
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."
Adrian Searle
Adrian Searle
Adrian Searle is the chief art critic of The Guardian newspaper in Britain, and has been writing for the paper since 1996. Previously he was a painter. He curates art shows and also writes fiction.-Career:...
in The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
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."
Philosophy
Saatchi's goal is to show contemporary work that would otherwise not be seen in big London institutions such as Tate ModernTate Modern
Tate Modern is a modern art gallery located in London, England. It is Britain's national gallery of international modern art and forms part of the Tate group . It is the most-visited modern art gallery in the world, with around 4.7 million visitors per year...
. The gallery's head of development, Rebecca Wilson, said, "The gallery's guiding principle is to show what is being made now, the most interesting artists of today. It's about drawing people's attentions to someone who might be tomorrow's Damien Hirst." The gallery's aim is to make art more accessible to the mainstream, rather than an exclusive artworld pursuit.
Timeline
1985 – 30000 square feet (2,787.1 m²) Saatchi Gallery opens at Boundary Road, London NW8, featuring many key works by Donald JuddDonald Judd
Donald Clarence Judd was an American artist associated with minimalism . In his work, Judd sought autonomy and clarity for the constructed object and the space created by it, ultimately achieving a rigorously democratic presentation without compositional hierarchy...
, Brice Marden
Brice Marden
Brice Marden , is an American artist, generally described as Minimalist, although his work defies specific categorization. He lives in New York and Eagles Mere.Marden is represented by the Matthew Marks Gallery.-Life:...
, Cy Twombly
Cy Twombly
Edwin Parker "Cy" Twombly, Jr. was an American artist well known for his large-scale, freely scribbled, calligraphic-style graffiti paintings, on solid fields of mostly gray, tan, or off-white colors...
and Andy Warhol
Andy Warhol
Andrew Warhola , known as Andy Warhol, was an American painter, printmaker, and filmmaker who was a leading figure in the visual art movement known as pop art...
. This was the first UK exhibition for Twombly and Marden.
1986 – Exhibits Anselm Kiefer
Anselm Kiefer
Anselm Kiefer is a German painter and sculptor. He studied with Joseph Beuys and Peter Dreher during the 1970s. His works incorporate materials such as straw, ash, clay, lead, and shellac...
and Richard Serra
Richard Serra
Richard Serra is an American minimalist sculptor and video artist known for working with large-scale assemblies of sheet metal. Serra was involved in the Process Art Movement.-Early life and education:...
.
1987 – The New York Art Now show introduces American artists including Jeff Koons
Jeff Koons
Jeffrey "Jeff" Koons is an American artist known for his reproductions of banal objects—such as balloon animals produced in stainless steel with mirror finish surfaces....
, Robert Gober
Robert Gober
Robert Gober is an American sculptor. His work is often related to domestic and familiar objects such as sinks, doors, and legs.-Life and work:...
, Ashley Bickerton
Ashley Bickerton
Ashley Bickerton is a contemporary artist living in Bali. A mixed-media artist, Bickerton often combines both photographic and painterly elements with industrial and found object assemblages...
, Carroll Dunham and Phillip Taaffe to the UK.
1988–1991 ¬– Introduces artists including Leon Golub
Leon Golub
Leon Golub was an American painter. He was born in Chicago, Illinois, where he also studied, receiving his BA at the University of Chicago in 1942, his BFA and MFA at the Art Institute of Chicago in 1949 and 1950, respectively.He was married to and collaborated with the artist Nancy Spero...
, Phillip Guston, Sigmar Polke
Sigmar Polke
Sigmar Polke was a German painter and photographer.Polke experimented with a wide range of styles, subject matter and materials. In the 1970s, he concentrated on photography, returning to paint in the 1980s, when he produced abstract works created by chance through chemical reactions between paint...
, Bruce Nauman
Bruce Nauman
Bruce Nauman is a contemporary American artist. His practice spans a broad range of media including sculpture, photography, neon, video, drawing, printmaking, and performance. Nauman lives in Galisteo, New Mexico....
, Richard Artschwager and Cindy Sherman
Cindy Sherman
Cindy Sherman is an American photographer and film director, best known for her conceptual portraits. Sherman currently lives and works in New York City. In 1995, she was the recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship. She is represented by Sprüth Magers Berlin London in and Metro Pictures gallery in...
to London.
1992 – Curates its first Young British Artists show Damien Hirst
Damien Hirst
Damien Steven Hirst is an English artist, entrepreneur and art collector. He is the most prominent member of the group known as the Young British Artists , who dominated the art scene in Britain during the 1990s. He is internationally renowned, and is reportedly Britain's richest living artist,...
, Marc Quinn
Marc Quinn
Marc Quinn is a British artist and part of the group known as Britartists or YBAs . He is known for Alison Lapper Pregnant , Self , and Garden .He is one of the Young British...
, Rachel Whiteread
Rachel Whiteread
Rachel Whiteread, CBE is an English artist, best known for her sculptures, which typically take the form of casts. She won the annual Turner Prize in 1993—the first woman to win the prize....
, Gavin Turk
Gavin Turk
Gavin Turk is a British artist and one of the Young British Artists . He often uses his own image in life-size sculptures of famous people.-Life and work:...
, Glenn Brown
Glenn Brown
Glenn Brown is an English artist. He was nominated for the Turner Prize in 2000.-Working practice:Brown appropriates images created by living, working artists, such as Frank Auerbach and Howard Hodgkin, as well as images by artists more established in the historical canon, such as Rembrandt or...
, Sarah Lucas
Sarah Lucas
Sarah Lucas is an English artist. She is part of the generation of Young British Artists who emerged during the 1990s...
, Jenny Saville
Jenny Saville
Jenny Saville is a contemporary British painter; best known as one of the Young British Artists. She is known for her large-scale painted depictions of naked women.-Life and career:Saville works and lives in Oxford, England...
and Gary Hume
Gary Hume
Gary Stewart Hume is an English artist. His work is strongly identified with the YBA artists who came to prominence in the early-1990s. In 1996, Hume was nominated for the Turner Prize, but lost out to Douglas Gordon. Hume was elected a Royal Academician in 2001.-Life and work:Hume was born in...
were all presented in these exhibitions.
1997 – Opens Sensation
Sensation exhibition
Sensation was an exhibition of the collection of contemporary art owned by Charles Saatchi, including many works by Young British Artists, which first took place 18 September – 28 December 1997 at the Royal Academy of Art in London and later toured to Berlin and New York...
: Young British Art from the Saatchi Gallery at the Royal Academy
Royal Academy
The Royal Academy of Arts is an art institution based in Burlington House on Piccadilly, London. The Royal Academy of Arts has a unique position in being an independent, privately funded institution led by eminent artists and architects whose purpose is to promote the creation, enjoyment and...
featuring 42 artists including The Chapman Brothers, Marcus Harvey
Marcus Harvey
Marcus Harvey is an English artist and painter, one of the Young British Artists .-Exhibitions:Harvey has shown work internationally in many exhibitions including ‘The Führer's Cakes’ at Galleria Marabini in Bologna, ‘Snaps’ at White Cube in London, ‘Sex and the British’ at Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac...
, Damien Hirst
Damien Hirst
Damien Steven Hirst is an English artist, entrepreneur and art collector. He is the most prominent member of the group known as the Young British Artists , who dominated the art scene in Britain during the 1990s. He is internationally renowned, and is reportedly Britain's richest living artist,...
, Ron Mueck
Ron Mueck
Ronald "Ron" Mueck is an Australian hyperrealist sculptor working in the United Kingdom.-Early work:Ron Mueck began his career working on the Australian children's television program Shirl's Neighbourhood...
, Jenny Saville
Jenny Saville
Jenny Saville is a contemporary British painter; best known as one of the Young British Artists. She is known for her large-scale painted depictions of naked women.-Life and career:Saville works and lives in Oxford, England...
, Sarah Lucas
Sarah Lucas
Sarah Lucas is an English artist. She is part of the generation of Young British Artists who emerged during the 1990s...
& Tracey Emin
Tracey Emin
Tracey Karima Emin RA is a British artist of English and Turkish Cypriot origin. She is part of the group known as Britartists or YBAs ....
. Sensation attracted over 300,000 visitors, a record for a contemporary exhibition.
1999 – Sensation at the Hamburger Bahnhof
Hamburger Bahnhof
Hamburger Bahnhof is a former railway station in Berlin, Germany, on Invalidenstraße in the Moabit district opposite the Charité hospital. Today it serves as the Museum für Gegenwart , a contemporary art museum....
in Berlin.
1999 – Sensation tours to Brooklyn Museum of Art.
1999 – Donates 100 artworks to the Arts Council of Great Britain
Arts Council of Great Britain
The Arts Council of Great Britain was a non-departmental public body dedicated to the promotion of the fine arts in Great Britain. The Arts Council of Great Britain was divided in 1994 to form the Arts Council of England , the Scottish Arts Council, and the Arts Council of Wales...
Collection, which operates a ‘lending library’ to museums and galleries around Britain.
2000 – Donates 40 works through the National Arts Collection Fund to eight museums across Britain.
2000 – Begins a series of one person shows of major international figures mostly new to Britain, including Duane Hanson
Duane Hanson
Duane Hanson was an American artist based in South Florida but born in Minnesota, a sculptor known for his lifecast realistic works of people, cast in various materials, including polyester resin, fibreglass, Bondo and bronze...
, Boris Mikhailov
Boris Mikhailov
Boris Mikhailov may refer to:*Boris Mikhailov , former Soviet international ice hockey player*Borislav Mikhailov, President of the Bulgarian Football Union, and former Bulgarian international*Boris Mikhailov...
and Alex Katz
Alex Katz
Alex Katz is an American figurative artist associated with the Pop art movement. In particular, he is known for his paintings, sculptures, and prints and is represented by numerous galleries internationally.-Life and work:...
. Shows entitled Young Americans and Eurovision introduce artists including John Currin
John Currin
John Currin is an American painter. He is best known for satirical figurative paintings which deal with provocative sexual and social themes in a technically skillful manner. His work shows a wide range of influences, including sources as diverse as the Renaissance, popular culture magazines, and...
, Andreas Gursky
Andreas Gursky
Andreas Gursky is a German visual artist known for his enormous architecture and landscape color photographs, often employing a high point of view...
, Charles Ray
Charles Ray
Charles Ray was a silent film star. Extremely popular in a series of films casting him in juvenile roles, primarily rural young men, Ray's career faded as he lost his youthful looks- he also had a reputation of being demanding and having an outsized ego...
, Richard Prince
Richard Prince
Richard Prince is an American painter and photographer. Prince began appropriating photographs in 1975...
, Rineke Dijkstra
Rineke Dijkstra
Rineke Dijkstra is a female Dutch photographer.-Life and work:Dijkstra concentrates on single portraits, and usually works in series, looking at groups such as adolescents, clubbers, and soldiers. Her subjects are often shown standing, facing the camera, against a minimal background...
, Lisa Yuskavage
Lisa Yuskavage
Lisa Yuskavage is a contemporary American painter who lives and works in New York City. Her figurative oil painting is known for its engagement with the female form. Her name is pronounced yus-CAH-vitch....
and Elizabeth Peyton
Elizabeth Peyton
Elizabeth Joy Peyton is an American painter who rose to popularity in the mid-1990s. She is a contemporary artist best known for stylized and idealized portraits of her close friends and boyfriends, pop celebrities, and European monarchy...
.
2001 – I am a Camera exhibition opens at the Gallery, showing photography and other related works where traditional boundaries are blurred as photographs influence paintings, and paintings influence photographs. The show included work by many other artists new in the UK.
2002 – Donates 50 artworks to the Paintings in Hospitals program which lends over 3,000 originals to NHS hospitals, hospices and health centers throughout England, Wales and Ireland.
2003 – Moves to County Hall
County Hall
A county hall or shire hall is usual name given to a building housing a county's administration. The location of the county hall has usually denoted the county town, and as county halls have moved it has also been considered that the county town has moved, for example when Derbyshire County Council...
, the Greater London Council
Greater London Council
The Greater London Council was the top-tier local government administrative body for Greater London from 1965 to 1986. It replaced the earlier London County Council which had covered a much smaller area...
’s former headquarters on the South Bank
South Bank
South Bank is an area of London, England located immediately adjacent to the south side of the River Thames. It forms a long and narrow section of riverside development that is within the London Borough of Lambeth to the border with the London Borough of Southwark and was formerly simply known as...
, creating a 40000 square feet (3,716.1 m²) exhibition space. The opening show included a Hirst retrospective as well as works by other YBAs such as the Chapman Brothers, Tracey Emin
Tracey Emin
Tracey Karima Emin RA is a British artist of English and Turkish Cypriot origin. She is part of the group known as Britartists or YBAs ....
, Jenny Saville
Jenny Saville
Jenny Saville is a contemporary British painter; best known as one of the Young British Artists. She is known for her large-scale painted depictions of naked women.-Life and career:Saville works and lives in Oxford, England...
and Sarah Lucas
Sarah Lucas
Sarah Lucas is an English artist. She is part of the generation of Young British Artists who emerged during the 1990s...
.
2004 – A fire in the Momart
Momart
Momart is a British company specialising in the storage, transportation, and installation of works of art. It has been owned by Falkland Islands Holdings since 5 March 2008....
storage warehouse destroyed many works from the collection, including the major Tracey Emin
Tracey Emin
Tracey Karima Emin RA is a British artist of English and Turkish Cypriot origin. She is part of the group known as Britartists or YBAs ....
work Everyone I Have Ever Slept With 1963–95 ("the tent"), and Jake and Dinos Chapman
Jake and Dinos Chapman
Iakovos "Jake" Chapman and Konstantinos "Dinos" Chapman are English visual artists, often known as the Chapman Brothers, who work together as a collaborative sibling duo...
's tableau Hell.
2005 – Launches a year-long, three-part series exhibition, The Triumph of Painting. The opening exhibition focuses on influential European painters Marlene Dumas
Marlene Dumas
Marlene Dumas is a South African born artist and painter who lives and works in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Stressing both the physical reality of the human body and its psychological value, Dumas tends...
, Martin Kippenberger
Martin Kippenberger
Martin Kippenberger was a German artist known for his extremely prolific output in a wide range of styles and media as well as his provocative, jocular and hard-drinking public persona....
, Luc Tuymans
Luc Tuymans
Luc Tuymans is a contemporary artist who lives and works in Antwerp, Belgium. Tuymans is considered one of the most influential painters working today. His signature figurative paintings transform mediated film, television, and print sources into examinations of history and memory.-Life:Tuymans...
, Peter Doig
Peter Doig
Peter Doig is a contemporary artist born in Scotland. In 2007, a painting of Doig's, entitled White Canoe, sold at Sotheby's for $11.3 million, then an auction record for a living European artist.-Early life:...
, Jörg Immendorff
Jörg Immendorff
Jörg Immendorff was one of the best known contemporary German painters; he was also a sculptor, stage designer and art professor.- Life and work :...
, and followed with younger painters including Albert Oehlen
Albert Oehlen
Albert Oehlen is a contemporary German artist. He graduated from the Hochschule für Bildende Kunst, Hamburg, in 1978. Closely associated with the Cologne art scene, he was a member of the Lord Jim Lodge, along with Martin Kippenberger among others...
, Wilhelm Sasnal
Wilhelm Sasnal
Wilhelm Sasnal is a Polish painter. Sasnal received his diploma of painting in 1999 from the Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków.-Early life and career:Wilhelm Sasnal was born in Tarnów, Poland, in 1972...
and Thomas Scheibitz
Thomas Scheibitz
Thomas Scheibitz is a German painter and sculptor. Together with Tino Sehgal he created the German pavilion on the 51st Venice Biennale in 2005. He lives and works in Berlin.-External links:...
.
2005 – Expanded into the Duke of York's Headquarters building in Chelsea
Chelsea, London
Chelsea is an area of West London, England, bounded to the south by the River Thames, where its frontage runs from Chelsea Bridge along the Chelsea Embankment, Cheyne Walk, Lots Road and Chelsea Harbour. Its eastern boundary was once defined by the River Westbourne, which is now in a pipe above...
. This put a halt to London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
shows while the new premises were being prepared.
2005 – Exhibited a selection of works from The Triumph of Painting in Leeds Art Gallery
Leeds Art Gallery
Leeds Art Gallery in Leeds, West Yorkshire, England is a museum whose collection of 20th century British Art is recognised by the British government as a collection "of national importance". Its collection also includes 19th century and earlier art works. The gallery opened on 3 October 1888 as...
.
2006 – During the period between premises, the Saatchi Online website began an open-access section where artists could upload works of art and their biographies onto personal pages. The site currently has over 100,000 artist profiles and receives over 68 million hits a day, ranking at 316 in the Alexa Top 50,000 World Websites.
2006 – In association with the Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
newspaper, opened the first ever reader-curated exhibition, showing the work of 10 artists registered on Saatchi Online. In November launched a new section within Saatchi Online exclusively for art students, called Stuart. Art students from all over the world were able to create home pages with images of their art, photos, lists of their favorite artists, books, films and television
Television
Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...
shows, and links to their friends' pages. Other sections on Saatchi Online include; chat, a daily art magazine, a forum, written and video blogs, as well as sections for street art
Street art
Street art is any art developed in public spaces — that is, "in the streets" — though the term usually refers to unsanctioned art, as opposed to government sponsored initiatives...
, photography
Photography
Photography is the art, science and practice of creating durable images by recording light or other electromagnetic radiation, either electronically by means of an image sensor or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film...
and illustration
Illustration
An illustration is a displayed visualization form presented as a drawing, painting, photograph or other work of art that is created to elucidate or dictate sensual information by providing a visual representation graphically.- Early history :The earliest forms of illustration were prehistoric...
.
2006 – USA Today: New American Art from the Saatchi Gallery opens at the Royal Academy
Royal Academy
The Royal Academy of Arts is an art institution based in Burlington House on Piccadilly, London. The Royal Academy of Arts has a unique position in being an independent, privately funded institution led by eminent artists and architects whose purpose is to promote the creation, enjoyment and...
.
2007 – Added a new online feature called "Museums around the World" hosting over 2,800 museums, showing collection highlights, exhibitions and other relevant information. 2,700 Colleges and Universities from around the world also offer 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
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
.
2008 – Reopens on the October 9 in the entire 70000 square feet (6,503.2 m²) Duke of York's Headquarters building on Kings Road
Kings Road
King's Road or Kings Road, known popularly as The King's Road or The KR, is a major, well-known street stretching through Chelsea and Fulham, both in west London, England...
in Chelsea
Chelsea, London
Chelsea is an area of West London, England, bounded to the south by the River Thames, where its frontage runs from Chelsea Bridge along the Chelsea Embankment, Cheyne Walk, Lots Road and Chelsea Harbour. Its eastern boundary was once defined by the River Westbourne, which is now in a pipe above...
, London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, with The Revolution Continues: New Art from China.
Saatchi Online
In 2006, during the period in limbo between premises, the gallery's website began an open-access section, including Your Gallery, where artists can upload up to twenty works and a biography to a personal page. Over 100,000 artists had done so as of 2010, and the site receives an estimated 73 million hits a day. Your Gallery was later rebranded as Saatchi Online. In September 2008, Alexa InternetAlexa Internet
Alexa Internet, Inc. is a California-based subsidiary company of Amazon.com that is known for its toolbar and Web site. Once installed, the toolbar collects data on browsing behavior which is transmitted to the Web site where it is stored and analyzed and is the basis for the company's Web traffic...
ranked Saatchi Gallery among the leading 300 websites in the world. In November 2007 it was estimated that professional artists registered sell over $100 million of art directly from the site annually. In 2008 Saatchi Online launched a saleroom section that hosts over 84,000 entries from artists wishing to sell their work. The site takes no commission from either buyer or seller.
In October 2006 the Saatchi Gallery in association with The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
newspaper opened the first ever reader-curated exhibition, showing the work of 10 Saatchi Online artists. Users may also be featured in the Saatchi Online stall at various art fairs. In November 2006 the gallery launched a new section exclusively for art students, called Stuart. Stuart also hosts an annual competition, 4 New Sensations, in association with Channel 4
Channel 4
Channel 4 is a British public-service television broadcaster which began working on 2 November 1982. Although largely commercially self-funded, it is ultimately publicly owned; originally a subsidiary of the Independent Broadcasting Authority , the station is now owned and operated by the Channel...
.
Other spaces on Saatchi Online including a forum, live chat, blogs, videos, photography
Photography
Photography is the art, science and practice of creating durable images by recording light or other electromagnetic radiation, either electronically by means of an image sensor or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film...
and illustration
Illustration
An illustration is a displayed visualization form presented as a drawing, painting, photograph or other work of art that is created to elucidate or dictate sensual information by providing a visual representation graphically.- Early history :The earliest forms of illustration were prehistoric...
. The site also publishes grant and funding opportunities. A daily magazine features 24 hour news updated every 15 minutes, as well as articles and reviews by art critics such as Jerry Saltz
Jerry Saltz
Jerry Saltz is an American art critic. Since 2006, he has been senior art critic and a columnist for New York magazine. Formerly the senior art critic for The Village Voice, Saltz has been nominated for the Pulitzer Prize in Criticism three times. He was the sole advisor for the 1995 Whitney...
and Matthew Collings
Matthew Collings
-Life and career:In one of his books on art, Collings states that, in his early teenage years, he ran away to Canada. This act was preceded by a period of hanging around in a house in Oakley Street, Chelsea, whose residents included members of various rock bands including Mighty Baby and Family...
. The site recently began broadcasting an online television
Television
Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...
channel with video access to art openings, artists' studios, performances and interviews.
Interactive features include the weekly Showdown competition, where users can win an exhibition spot, the Online Studio for creating art (each month a critic selects a winner in whose name a £500 donation is made to a children's charity) a Crits section in which artists can comment on each others' work, and the Street Art section for graffiti, murals, and performance art.
"Museums around the World" features over 3,300 museums. These include the Metropolitan Museum of Art
Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Metropolitan Museum of Art is a renowned art museum in New York City. Its permanent collection contains more than two million works, divided into nineteen curatorial departments. The main building, located on the eastern edge of Central Park along Manhattan's Museum Mile, is one of the...
, The Museum of Modern Art
Museum of Modern Art
The Museum of Modern Art is an art museum in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, on 53rd Street, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It has been important in developing and collecting modernist art, and is often identified as the most influential museum of modern art in the world...
, the Tate
Tate
-Places:*Tate, Georgia, a town in the United States*Tate County, Mississippi, a county in the United States*Táté, the Hungarian name for Totoi village, Sântimbru Commune, Alba County, Romania*Tate, Filipino word for States...
, the London National Gallery, the Louvre
Louvre
The Musée du Louvre – in English, the Louvre Museum or simply the Louvre – is one of the world's largest museums, the most visited art museum in the world and a historic monument. A central landmark of Paris, it is located on the Right Bank of the Seine in the 1st arrondissement...
, and the State Hermitage, as well as small museums.
As of July 2008, 4,300 art dealers and commercial galleries have profiles on the site. Over 2,800 universities and colleges have uploaded prospectuses and student information, including Yale
YALE
RapidMiner, formerly YALE , is an environment for machine learning, data mining, text mining, predictive analytics, and business analytics. It is used for research, education, training, rapid prototyping, application development, and industrial applications...
, Harvard, the University of Cambridge
University of Cambridge
The University of Cambridge is a public research university located in Cambridge, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest university in both the United Kingdom and the English-speaking world , and the seventh-oldest globally...
and the University of Oxford
University of Oxford
The University of Oxford is a university located in Oxford, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest surviving university in the world and the oldest in the English-speaking world. Although its exact date of foundation is unclear, there is evidence of teaching as far back as 1096...
, as well as local art colleges. Over 1,500 schools have uploaded up pupils’ works. Schools range from Eton College
Eton College
Eton College, often referred to simply as Eton, is a British independent school for boys aged 13 to 18. It was founded in 1440 by King Henry VI as "The King's College of Our Lady of Eton besides Wyndsor"....
to small Primary and High schools. The Portfolio School Art Prize is open to schools with pupils between 5 and 17.
A Mandarin language version allows Chinese artists to upload their profiles in Chinese and translates them into English. There is also a Chinese language chatroom, forum, and blog. The site provides automated translations into many languages; Russian, Spanish and Portuguese versions of the site are planned.
Controversies
- Artists such as Sandro ChiaSandro ChiaSandro Chia is an Italian painter and sculptor.A native of Florence, he was a key member of the Italian Transavanguardia movement, along with fellow countrymen Francesco Clemente, Mimmo Paladino, Nicola De Maria, and Enzo Cucchi....
and Sean ScullySean ScullySean Scully is an Irish-born American painter and printmaker who has twice been named a Turner Prize nominee. His work is collected in major museums worldwide.-Life and work:...
, 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's, which he sold back to Chia's two dealers, who re-sold them easily to museums or notable collectors. Saatchi claimed that a sale of strong work can help to galvanize the market for them.
- In 1997, in Sensation, London, Marcus HarveyMarcus HarveyMarcus Harvey is an English artist and painter, one of the Young British Artists .-Exhibitions:Harvey has shown work internationally in many exhibitions including ‘The Führer's Cakes’ at Galleria Marabini in Bologna, ‘Snaps’ at White Cube in London, ‘Sex and the British’ at Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac...
's giant paintingMyra (painting)Myra is a large painting created by Marcus Harvey in 1995. It became notorious when it was exhibited at the Sensation exhibition of Young British Artists at the Royal Academy of Art in London from 8 September to 28 December 1997.-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 murdersMoors murdersThe Moors murders were carried out by Ian Brady and Myra Hindley between July 1963 and October 1965, in and around what is now Greater Manchester, England. The victims were five children aged between 10 and 17—Pauline Reade, John Kilbride, Keith Bennett, Lesley Ann Downey and Edward Evans—at least...
victims. The work was restored and exhibited.
- The Sensation show in New York offended Mayor Rudolph GiulianiRudy GiulianiRudolph William Louis "Rudy" Giuliani KBE is an American lawyer, businessman, and politician from New York. He served as Mayor of New York City from 1994 to 2001....
, because of Chris OfiliChris OfiliChris Ofili is a Turner Prize winning British painter best known for artworks referencing aspects of his Nigerian heritage, particularly his incorporation of elephant dung. He was one of the Young British Artists, and is now based in Trinidad.-Early life:Ofilli was born in Manchester. He had a...
's painting, Holy Virgin Mary, which incorporates elephant dung. Giuliani, who had seen the work in the catalog but not in the show, called it "sick stuff" and threatened to withdraw the annual $7 million City Hall grant from the Brooklyn MuseumBrooklyn MuseumThe Brooklyn Museum is an encyclopedia art museum located in the New York City borough of Brooklyn. At 560,000 square feet, the museum holds New York City's second largest art collection with roughly 1.5 million works....
hosting the show, because "You don't have a right to government subsidy for desecrating somebody else's religion." 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". William A Donohue, President of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, said the work "induces revulsion". Giuliani started a lawsuit to evict the museum, and Arnold Lehman, the museum director, filed a federal lawsuit against Giuliani for breaching the First Amendment.
- Hillary Clinton and the New York Civil Liberties Union spoke up for the museum. The editorial board of The New York TimesThe New York TimesThe New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
said Giuliani's stance "promises to begin a new Ice Age in New York's cultural affairs." The paper also carried a petition in support signed by 106 creatives, including Susan SarandonSusan SarandonSusan Sarandon is an American actress. She has worked in films and television since 1969, and won an Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance in the 1995 film Dead Man Walking. She had also been nominated for the award for four films before that and has received other recognition for her...
, Steve MartinSteve MartinStephen Glenn "Steve" Martin is an American actor, comedian, writer, playwright, producer, musician and composer....
, Norman MailerNorman MailerNorman Kingsley Mailer was an American novelist, journalist, essayist, poet, playwright, screenwriter, and film director.Along with Truman Capote, Joan Didion, Hunter S...
, Arthur MillerArthur MillerArthur Asher Miller was an American playwright and essayist. He was a prominent figure in American theatre, writing dramas that include plays such as All My Sons , Death of a Salesman , The Crucible , and A View from the Bridge .Miller was often in the public eye,...
, Kurt VonnegutKurt VonnegutKurt Vonnegut, Jr. was a 20th century American writer. His works such as Cat's Cradle , Slaughterhouse-Five and Breakfast of Champions blend satire, gallows humor and science fiction. He was known for his humanist beliefs and was honorary president of the American Humanist Association.-Early...
and Susan SontagSusan SontagSusan Sontag was an American author, literary theorist, feminist and political activist whose works include On Photography and Against Interpretation.-Life:...
, saying that the mayor "blatantly disregards constitutional protection for freedom of the arts." Ofili, who is Roman Catholic, said, "elephant dung in itself is quite a beautiful object."
- The museum produced a yellow stamp, saying the artworks on show "may cause shock, vomiting, confusion, panic, euphoria and anxiety." and Ofili's painting was shown behind a Plexiglass screen, guarded by a museum attendant and an armed police officer. Jeffrey Hogrefe, New York ObserverNew York ObserverThe New York Observer is a weekly newspaper first published in New York City on September 22, 1987, by Arthur L. Carter, a very successful former investment banker with publishing interests. The Observer focuses on the city's culture, real estate, the media, politics and the entertainment and...
art critic, said, "They wanted to get some publicity and they got it. I think it was pretty calculated." The editor-in-chief of the New York Art & AuctionArt & AuctionArt+Auction is a monthly art magazine published in New York City by Louise Blouin Media. The magazine is published 12 times per year; it includes special features & art news stories, art & collector profiles, reviews & auction reports, calendar of art events, art market trends & insider market...
magazine, Bruce Wolmer,said: "When the row eventually fades the only smile will be on the face of Charles Saatchi, a master self-promoter." Giuliani lost his court case and was forced to restore funding.
- Sensation was scheduled to open in June 1999 at the National Gallery of AustraliaNational Gallery of AustraliaThe National Gallery of Australia is the national art gallery of Australia, holding more than 120,000 works of art. It was established in 1967 by the Australian government as a national public art gallery.- Establishment :...
, but was canceled. Director Brian Kennedy said 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'sChristie'sChristie's is an art business and a fine arts auction house.- History :The official company literature states that founder James Christie conducted the first sale in London, England, on 5 December 1766, and the earliest auction catalogue the company retains is from December 1766...
, 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; Saatchi's contribution, the largest single one, was not disclosed by the Brooklyn Museum until it appeared in court documents. When the show opened in London at the Royal Academy, there had been criticisms that it would raise the value of the work.
- In 2004, media controversy arose over two paintings by Stella VineStella VineStella Vine is an English artist, who lives and works in London. Her work is figurative painting with subject matter drawn from either her personal life of family, friends and school, or rock stars, royalty and celebrities.After a difficult relationship with her stepfather, she left home and in...
. 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 WhitearRachel WhitearRachel Whitear was a British student from Ledbury, Herefordshire who died following a heroin overdose. Her death in May 2000 led to a large-scale anti-drugs campaign in Britain, particularly in secondary schools, when her parents allowed a police photograph to be shown publicly – it showed...
, whose body was being exhumed at the time; Whitear's parents and the police appealed for the painting to be withdrawn, but it was not.
- In 2004, the StuckistsStuckismStuckism is an international art movement founded in 1999 by Billy Childish and Charles Thomson to promote figurative painting in opposition to conceptual art...
reported Saatchi to the Office of Fair TradingOffice of Fair TradingThe Office of Fair Trading is a not-for-profit and non-ministerial government department of the United Kingdom, established by the Fair Trading Act 1973, which enforces both consumer protection and competition law, acting as the UK's economic regulator...
alleging unfair competition. The complaint was not upheld. They also picketed the opening of The Triumph of Painting claiming that Saatchi had stolen their ideas. (Vine had previously been involved with the Stuckists.)
- In 2006, "USA Today" 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 SnowDash SnowDashiel "Dash" Snow was an American artist, based in New York.-Life:Dashiel A. Snow was born in 1981, the son of Taya Thurman and Christopher Snow...
and Gerald Davis was posted by the Royal Academy, on a wall outside the room in which the controversial works were hung. These were 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 titled Monica by Gerald Davis in which a young woman engages in fellatio.
1987
- Anselm KieferAnselm KieferAnselm Kiefer is a German painter and sculptor. He studied with Joseph Beuys and Peter Dreher during the 1970s. His works incorporate materials such as straw, ash, clay, lead, and shellac...
- Richard SerraRichard SerraRichard Serra is an American minimalist sculptor and video artist known for working with large-scale assemblies of sheet metal. Serra was involved in the Process Art Movement.-Early life and education:...
- Jeff KoonsJeff KoonsJeffrey "Jeff" Koons is an American artist known for his reproductions of banal objects—such as balloon animals produced in stainless steel with mirror finish surfaces....
- Robert GoberRobert GoberRobert Gober is an American sculptor. His work is often related to domestic and familiar objects such as sinks, doors, and legs.-Life and work:...
- Philip TaaffePhilip TaaffePhilip Taaffe is an American artistTaaffe was born in Elizabeth, New Jersey and studied at the Cooper Union in New York, gaining a Bachelor of Fine Arts in 1977....
- Carroll Dunham
1996
- Janine AntoniJanine AntoniJanine Antoni is a contemporary artist whose work focuses mostly on process. She often uses her whole body or different parts of it, such as her mouth, hair, eyelashes, and brain as tools and with them performs everyday activities to create her artwork.She graduated from Sarah Lawrence College...
- Tony OurslerTony OurslerTony Oursler is a multimedia and installation artist.- Tapes, Installations: 1977-1989:Tony Oursler is known for his fractured-narrative handmade video tapes including The Loner, 1980 and EVOL 1984. These works involve elaborate sound tracks, painted sets, stop-action animation and optical special...
- Richard PrinceRichard PrinceRichard Prince is an American painter and photographer. Prince began appropriating photographs in 1975...
- Charles RayCharles RayCharles Ray was a silent film star. Extremely popular in a series of films casting him in juvenile roles, primarily rural young men, Ray's career faded as he lost his youthful looks- he also had a reputation of being demanding and having an outsized ego...
- Kiki SmithKiki SmithKiki Smith is an American artist classified as a feminist artist, a movement with beginnings in the twentieth century...
- Stephan Balkenhol
1997
- Duane HansonDuane HansonDuane Hanson was an American artist based in South Florida but born in Minnesota, a sculptor known for his lifecast realistic works of people, cast in various materials, including polyester resin, fibreglass, Bondo and bronze...
- Andreas GurskyAndreas GurskyAndreas Gursky is a German visual artist known for his enormous architecture and landscape color photographs, often employing a high point of view...
- Martin HonertMartin HonertMartin Honert is a German artist based in Düsseldorf. He is known for making veristic sculptures of memories or images related to his childhood. Honert is represented by the Matthew Marks Gallery in New York.-Work:...
- Thomas RuffThomas RuffThomas Ruff is an internationally renowned German photographer who lives and works in Düsseldorf.-Life:...
- Thomas SchütteThomas SchütteThomas Schütte is a German contemporary artist. From 1973 to 1981 he studied art at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf alongside Katharina Fritsch under Gerhard Richter and Fritz Schwegler. He lives and works in Düsseldorf.-Work:In the early 1980s Schütte began a series of small sculptural works...
1998
- David SalleDavid SalleDavid Salle is an American painter who helped define postmodern sensibility by combining figuration with a varied pictorial language of multi-imagery...
- Jessica StockholderJessica StockholderJessica Stockholder is a sculptor and installation artist who has had exhibitions in Europe and USA, her works, "challenge boundaries, blurring the distinction among painting, sculpture and environment, and even breaching gallery walls by extending beyond windows and doors".-Life and...
- Terry WintersTerry WintersTerry Winters is an American painter whose work reintroduced figuration into painting in way that was consonant with the Modernist legacy...
- John CurrinJohn CurrinJohn Currin is an American painter. He is best known for satirical figurative paintings which deal with provocative sexual and social themes in a technically skillful manner. His work shows a wide range of influences, including sources as diverse as the Renaissance, popular culture magazines, and...
- Tom FriedmanTom Friedman (artist)Tom Friedman American conceptual sculptor known for his work employing everyday material, such as toothpicks or sugar cubes in intricate geometric arrangements. Friedman was born in St. Louis, Missouri and attended Washington University in St. Louis, receiving his Bachelor of Fine Arts in graphic...
- Josiah McElhenyJosiah McElhenyJosiah McElheny is an artist and sculptor, primarily known for his work with glass blowing and assemblages of glass and mirrored glassed objects . He is a 2006 recipient of the MacArthur Fellows Program "genius grant"...
- Laura Owens
- Elizabeth PeytonElizabeth PeytonElizabeth Joy Peyton is an American painter who rose to popularity in the mid-1990s. She is a contemporary artist best known for stylized and idealized portraits of her close friends and boyfriends, pop celebrities, and European monarchy...
- Lisa YuskavageLisa YuskavageLisa Yuskavage is a contemporary American painter who lives and works in New York City. Her figurative oil painting is known for its engagement with the female form. Her name is pronounced yus-CAH-vitch....
1999
- Alex KatzAlex KatzAlex Katz is an American figurative artist associated with the Pop art movement. In particular, he is known for his paintings, sculptures, and prints and is represented by numerous galleries internationally.-Life and work:...
- Martin MaloneyMartin MaloneyMartin Maloney is a contemporary English artist.-Life and work:Martin Maloney was born in London. He attended the University of Sussex 1980–83, Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design 1988–91 and Goldsmiths College 1991–93.Martin Maloney practises deliberately "bad"...
- Dexter DalwoodDexter DalwoodDexter Dalwood is an artist based in London. He attended Humphry Davy School in his early life. Dalwood received his BA from Central St Martins College of Art, London, in 1985...
- Ron MueckRon MueckRonald "Ron" Mueck is an Australian hyperrealist sculptor working in the United Kingdom.-Early work:Ron Mueck began his career working on the Australian children's television program Shirl's Neighbourhood...
- Cecily BrownCecily BrownCecily Brown, born 1969 in London, is a British painter. She has a great respect for art history and her works reveal her reverence and high regard for artists such as Francisco de Goya, Nicolas Poussin, Willem de Kooning, and Joan Mitchell while incorporating into her works her distinct female...
- Noble and Webster
- Michael RaedeckerMichael RaedeckerMichael Raedecker is a Dutch artist based in London.Raedecker studied fashion at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie in Amsterdam from 1985-1990...
2000
- Boris MikhailovBoris MikhailovBoris Mikhailov may refer to:*Boris Mikhailov , former Soviet international ice hockey player*Borislav Mikhailov, President of the Bulgarian Football Union, and former Bulgarian international*Boris Mikhailov...
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County Hall
- Damien Hirst
- The Chapman Brothers
- New Blood
- Galleon & Other Stories
- The Triumph of Painting
Duke of York's HQ
- The Revolution Continues: New Art From China
forthcoming:
- Unveiled: New Art from the Middle East
- The Triumph of Painting
- Out Of Focus: Photography Now
- The Power Of Paper
Publications
- The Revolution Continues: New Art From China
- Sarah KentSarah KentSarah Kent is a British art critic, formerly the art editor of the weekly London 'what's on' guide Time Out. She was an early supporter of the Young British Artists in general, and Tracey Emin in particular, helping her to get early exposure. This has led to polarised reactions of praise and...
, "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
External links
- The Saatchi Gallery official website
- Virtual tour of the gallery
- Sunday Times Q&A with Charles Saatchi, 2008
- BBC video coverage of The Revolution Continues
- Video review of The Revolution Continues from The Daily Telegraph
- The Revolution Continues in pictures, from the BBC
- Pictures of the gallery at County Hall highlights of the collection
- Charles Saatchi, Readers Q&A, The Art Newspaper
- Charles Saatchi, Readers Q&A, The Independent
- The Stuckists' criticisms
- STUART in The Independent 30 November 2006
- STUART in The Sunday Times 24 December 2006
- STUART in New York Times 18 December 2006