LEAD: ''What's he buying?'' used to be the hot question in the art world about the British mega-collector Charles Saatchi. But now the question has turned around to, ''What's he selling?''
''What's he buying?'' used to be the hot question in the art world about the British mega-collector Charles Saatchi. But now the question has turned around to, ''What's he selling?''
The question is important because what Mr. Saatchi buys and sells has considerable influence on artists' reputations and their sales, as exemplified in 1984 when he disposed of six paintings by the Italian artist Sandro Chia. The incident is held responsible for casting a pall over Mr. Chia's work from which it has never really recovered.
As an aggressive player whose bulk transactions in certain contemporary artists can make or break the market for their work, Mr. Saatchi typifies the new breed of powerful collector from whom the art and auction worlds take their cues. Therefore, the unloading of objects from his collection - however discreet - can't help but make waves.
In the 1960's, Mr. Saatchi, founder of a vast advertising and public relations empire, began to amass what became one of the most important and well-rounded collections of recent art in the world, estimated at its peak to include more than 800 works and to be worth more than $250 million.
In 1985, he installed the collection in his own specially designed showcase, a renovated paint factory in northwest London. While still buying, however, he has sold off a sizable group of his holdings, generating a groundswell of rumors and speculation as to exactly what he has sold and what remains. Question of How Much
Some dealers who know Mr. Saatchi say he has divested himself of 10 percent of his collection, but others put the percentage higher. The reasons they advance as to why he is selling range from a much-needed ''pruning'' of the collection to the possibility that he needs money to help the vast Saatchi marketing and communications conglomerate overcome its present depressed earnings and profit margins. The collector himself, who has always refused interviews, would not comment.
There has even been some talk that he might be ending his collecting career. But Nicholas Logsdail, director of the Lisson Gallery in London, through which Mr. Saatchi has acquired sculpture, said: ''It would seem to me that the whole thing has been much exaggerated as a result of the whispers that go around in the art world. Every time a story gets repeated, it gets bigger.''
Commenting on the sales, a spokeswoman for the Saatchi Collection said the magnate was ''consolidating'' his collection. Andrew Graham-Dixon, a writer for the British newspaper The Independent - which broke the story in England that Mr. Saatchi had sold off at least 63 of his works and probably somewhere between 70 and 100 - said ''pruning'' would be a better way to describe it.
In New York, the dealer Larry Gagosian, who maintains that for the last year he has been the ''exclusive agent'' for the collector's sales, said: ''I wouldn't quarrel with the report that he has sold about 10 percent of his collection, although it may not be that high. He may be selling more than he's buying, but he's also been buying. He recently bought a Warhol from the Museum of Modern Art retrospective for what may be a record price.'' The Independent said Mr. Saatchi had also bought a work recently by the British artist Lucian Freud for a record price of $2 million. 'Much More Than 10 Percent'
But another knowledgeable New York gallery owner, who refused to speak for attribution because of business dealings with the collector, said Mr. Saatchi had sold ''much more than 10 percent.'' The dealer said the advertising magnate had indicated as long as two years ago that he wanted to pare down his holdings and had prepared a list of dispensable works by a number of artists.
''At the time, he really only wanted to sell the second-level paintings of the best artists, but at top, top market prices,'' the dealer said. ''His program was to have only 5 or 10 examples of each artist's work. He didn't want to give up the great paintings. At first he didn't want to do more than weed out, but recently he seems to be selling an awful lot.''
But Mr. Gagosian, who dismissed as untrue a rumor that he and the Swiss dealer Thomas Ammann had together paid $75 million for a block of Saatchi-owned works, said: ''It's not a purge or a dump. He's selling very, very lightly. There are some artists who don't weather as well, but there are many, many artists whose work he hasn't sold at all. With the majority he hasn't even sold one example.''
Yet the list of those whose work Mr. Saatchi has reportedly sold or traded - at prices ranging from a few hundred dollars to more than $1 million - is not inconsiderable. Pieced together from interviews with several dealers in New York, an unofficial list would include the German artists Georg Baselitz and Sigmar Polke, the Italian Francesco Clemente and the Americans Brice Marden, Robert Ryman, Sean Scully, Robert Mangold, David Salle, Julian Schnabel, Richard Artschwager, Neil Jenney, Bill Jenson, Malcolm Morley, John Chamberlain and Lucas Samaras. Among noteworthy younger American artists, Mr. Saatchi appears to have sold the work of Philip Taaffe, Jeff Koons, Peter Halley, Robert Gober, Ashley Bickerton and the team of Tim Rollins and K.O.S. At Christie's last May, he is said to have been the seller of two paintings by Lee Jaffe, a not-as-well-known artist, for less than a thousand dollars. A Breakdown by Artists
A breakdown of the specific numbers of works by individual artists that have been disposed of, said the dealer who would not speak for attribution, would probably include 12 by Sigmar Polke; 7 by David Salle; 15 by Julian Schnabel; 14 by Francesco Clemente, along with a 12-part Clemente series, ''Stations of the Cross''; 8 by Neil Jenney; 2 by Bill Jensen; 6 by Malcolm Morley, and perhaps a dozen each by Mr. Mangold and Mr. Ryman.
Reports that Mr. Saatchi was selling so much American work because of a shift in his allegiance to that of English painters were dismissed by Mr. Gagosian.
''It's true that he's been buying a lot of British art,'' Mr. Gagosian said, citing the recent Saatchi purchase of several paintings by Lucian Freud, among them ''Woman in a Gray Sweater,'' and the record-setting ''Two Men in the Studio.'' ''But he's not shifting from Americans to British; it's an oversimplification and a distortion to say that. He has enough money to buy both. The vast bulk of his collection is American.''
Some artists, who felt that their work had entered the Saatchi collection to become part of a permanent museum, are stung by the sales. ''I think it's sad that he's done this,'' said Robert Ryman. ''The museum he set up in London seemed like a very good thing. I worked with him to assemble a group of my paintings that would go nicely together and give a kind of overview. In a museum situation such as he has you would think that the works should remain together. So you sell some paintings and get a few million - what's that?'' 'It's Disillusioning'
Mr. Mangold, who recently had a joint show with the artist Bruce Nauman at the Saatchi space in London, said that Mr. Saatchi, after assembling a body of Mangold work ranging from the 1960's through the 80's, had sold ''every one of my pieces but one.''
He added: ''It's horrible. My impression is that he wants to buy what's current and after he shows it he's no longer interested. He's bought good works and put up good shows, but it's disillusioning for a collector of that kind just to unload. It becomes very manipulative.''
On the other hand, Mr. Marden, who said he thought Mr. Saatchi had sold three works from a ''hodgepodge collection'' of Mardens, observed: ''I don't mind. He's not obligated. He never said to me that he'd hold onto these things forever.''
Dealers say it's hard to tell whether the Saatchi selling wave will have an influence on the art market. Both Mr. Logsdail and the New York dealer Paula Cooper pointed out that at least Mr. Saatchi had been selling piecemeal, not ''dumping'' significant bodies of work at one time. ''Nobody likes to see works being sold,'' said Mr. Logsdail, ''but works get sold every day. He didn't put his collection into auction, which I think would really have been a problem.'' Ms. Cooper added: ''At least they haven't been dumped on the market; they trickle out.''
As they puzzle over the consequences, Saatchi watchers go on trying to analyze what makes this frenetic collector sell. Mr. Logsdail, the London dealer, suggested that it might simply be because ''he has collected on such a vast scale that he could not go on accumulating at that level, because of the sheer physical bulk of what he has accumulated.'' Seen to Be Selling 'Mistakes'
Peter Fuller, editor of the English magazine Modern Painters, said Mr. Saatchi might be selling off some of the ''mistakes'' he has collected. ''I hope it is that,'' said Mr. Fuller, who has been an outspoken critic not only of the quality of Mr. Saatchi's collection, but also of the sweeping manner in which he has acquired it.
''Anybody who buys paintings by the dozen is not actually discriminating between one painting and another,'' he said. ''He's more like a dealer than a collector.''
Norman Rosenthal, exhibitions secretary at the Royal Academy of Arts, disagreed. ''Charles Saatchi is an incredible collector,'' he said, noting that if Mr. Saatchi was selling, it was probably only a matter of prudence.
''Possessions are a burden to everybody,'' Mr. Rosenthal said. ''They need to be managed. I prefer to think that that's what he's doing, and the signs are that that's what he's doing. I know he's buying.''
Another London source, who asked to not be identified, maintained that Mr. Saatchi is selling in order to ''create the resources for him to go on, to make the collection self-financing.''
Mr. Gagosian said: ''He is reinvesting a substantial part of the proceeds in art. That's what a lot of collectors do.''
But the dealer went on to wonder why ''everyone is jumping on'' Mr. Saatchi for selling ''what's only a fraction of his holdings.''
''He's really been the greatest collector in the contemporary art world for the last 10 years,'' Mr. Gagosian said. ''He's bought with passion and in depth, and been a great friend to many artists. He's been a little reclusive, sure, but that's no reason to attack him. There's no Machiavellian hand here.''
