Brit Art has a new home, but can it still shock?

Wednesday, 16 April 2003

"What really stood out was the hopeful swagger of it all" writes Charles Saatchi in the foreword to a book about his collection of Young British Artists, now in its new home in the old County Hall in London. Which begs an obvious question. What exactly does a swagger look like when 10 years have passed and hopefulness seems neither here nor there any more? Or, more prejudicially, what are you left with when enfants terrible outgrow their infancy?

"What really stood out was the hopeful swagger of it all" writes Charles Saatchi in the foreword to a book about his collection of Young British Artists, now in its new home in the old County Hall in London. Which begs an obvious question. What exactly does a swagger look like when 10 years have passed and hopefulness seems neither here nor there any more? Or, more prejudicially, what are you left with when enfants terrible outgrow their infancy?

For quite a few people, of course, both questions have been answered. It is hard to believe that any private collection has been assaulted as frequently as that hungrily accumulated by Mr Saatchi over two decades. The ink has flown again and again – and not just metaphorically. Marcus Harvey's vast portrait of Myra Hindley took incoming from an outraged citizen, and Damien Hirst's formaldehyde-preserved sheep had black ink poured into its tank. Chinese artists bounced on Tracey Emin's bed, Rudolph Giuliani denounced the New York showing of Sensation, the exhibition that unveiled some of Saatchi's most treasured acquisitions. Brit Art or Saatchi art, it hit the public hard and from time to time its public hit back.

But maintaining a sense of outrage can be as difficult as continuing to be outrageous, and though the Saatchi brand can still pull a glamorous crowd, not all of his star works are as pugnacious as they used to be. Rotting cows' heads and electrocuted flies? Been there. Bedraggled condoms and biological stains? Done that.

In any setting, these once-notorious pieces would now be trying to keep their heads up. In the architectural preservative of County Hall they struggle even harder. The building looks as if it has been incompetently vacated rather than brilliantly occupied. As a marketer Mr Saatchi showed genius in giving Brit Art global reach and name recognition; as a museum curator he shows nothing like the same assurance. The presence of Marc Quinn's self-portrait bust, moulded from the artist's frozen blood, proves that stories about its accidental defrosting were untrue. But the Gallery itself suggests that no amount of formaldehyde can protect shock from the inevitable process of decay.