Thursday, 4 July 2002
There will, one imagines, be blood on the carpet. Self, a sculpture of the artist Marc Quinn's head, cast in his own blood, has apparently been destroyed by builders inadvertently turning off a freezer belonging to the multimillionaire art collector Charles Saatchi.
There will, one imagines, be blood on the carpet. Self, a sculpture of the artist Marc Quinn's head, cast in his own blood, has apparently been destroyed by builders inadvertently turning off a freezer belonging to the multimillionaire art collector Charles Saatchi.
Quinn took nine pints of his own blood over five months to make the piece, which sat alongside dismembered limbs and pickled animals in 1997's controversial Sensation exhibition at the Royal Academy.
But according to reports yesterday, it took just hours for the iconic contemporary British artwork to seep away after building work began in Mr Saatchi's London home.
Britain's leading contemporary art collector was storing Self at the home he shares with the television chef Nigella Lawson in Eaton Square, Belgravia, where he also keeps Tracey Emin's famous unmade bed. Mr Saatchi is said to enjoy showing visitors the room where he keeps Emin's £150,000 work My Bed, telling them he has told his nanny to clear it up, and Self was to have become the second highlight of the tour.
The freezer unit was apparently switched off as builders moved furniture around the flat for renovations.
Mr Saatchi paid a reputed £13,000 for the blood-filled head, which was made by Quinn in 1991. Mr Saatchi was not commenting yesterday on the fate of his prized possession, possibly because he was too furious to speak.
The Saatchi gallery did not return calls yesterday, and a spokeswoman from the White Cube gallery, whose owner, Jay Jopling, represents Quinn, said the artist did not want to make any comment.
But one report quoted an unnamed source, describing the unscheduled meltdown as a catastrophe for contemporary art. "It all went wrong when the builders started to take the old kitchen to pieces," said the source. "They turned the freezer off and moved it away from the wall. A pool of what looked suspiciously like blood appeared around the freezer. The builders looked inside and saw, to their horror, that one of Saatchi's pieces of modern art had melted."
Quinn, 38, has been at the cutting edge of British contemporary art since Self first brought him to public attention and caused people to faint when it was exhibited. Born in London, he graduated from Cambridge University in 1985 and has shown works widely in Europe and the United States. Last year he won the Woollaston Award for the "most distinguished work" at the Royal Academy's summer exhibition for his marble sculpture Catherine Long, part of a series depicting nude men and women who had lost one or more limbs.
Since 1991 he has remade Self twice, to reflect changes in his face as he grows older. The original was a unique, irreplaceable work.
Last night Sir Peter Blake, the pop artist who was behind last year's Royal Academy summer exhibition, said it would be a dramatic loss if the original Self had been destroyed. "If it has happened in these circumstances it seems crazy and very irresponsible. It was always a fragile study, as there was always a possibility that it would melt if there was a power cut. [Quinn] could do it again, but he is more than 10 years older now so it will not be exactly the same," he said.
Another source familiar with contemporary art collectors said that if Self had been ruined, it could not have been as simple as builders turning off a standard freezer.
"Charles Saatchi is a serious collector and looks after his artwork. I would be very surprised if he was keeping it in a kitchen freezer," they said.
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