THE LEGACY of Britart is under threat. Charles Saatchi, the country’s most influential art collector, believes most of the art movement’s controversial figures will be “nothing but footnotes” in art history.
Saatchi is the most famous buyer of modern conceptual artworks in Britain, ranging from Damien Hirst’s tiger shark pickled in a tank of formaldehyde to Tracey Emin’s unmade bed.
But the advertising magnate is understood to admit that in a decade or so the vast majority of Britart’s artists are unlikely to be considered of any lasting significance. It is a withering critique that may reflect a decision by Saatchi to give greater consideration to more traditional artistic forms.
Saatchi believes that art books produced in about 10 years’ time will identify only Hirst among the Britart movement as someone of lasting influence. He believes other modern artists likely to stand the test of time are the Americans Andy Warhol, Jackson Pollock and Donald Judd.
Those outside such a pantheon include Emin, the Chapman brothers (Jake and Dinos), whose artworks include mannequins adorned with adult genitalia in place of their mouths and eyes, and Ron Mueck, who produced a 3ft representation of his father’s corpse entitled Dead Dad. “Charles is entitled to his view,” said Emin yesterday. “Anyway, I’m sure he hasn’t said this to insult me.”
Saatchi bought Emin’s infamous unmade bed in 2000 for £150,000. It has since been displayed in his gallery on London’s South Bank, which opened in April 2003.
“I’m with him on Warhol and Pollock,” said the art critic Brian Sewell. “Maybe Judd, too, though perhaps I might have gone for Serra instead.” Richard Serra is the highly regarded American sculptor. “But I’m not at all sure about Hirst,” said Sewell. “I once took him seriously. That seriousness might simply have been in the eye of the beholder. I now think he will end up just as a joker. He’s become a playboy.”
In an interview in December’s The Art Newspaper, Saatchi also reopens the wound between himself and Sir Nicholas Serota, director of the Tate galleries, because he suggests that he offered his collection to Tate Modern towards the end of last year.
Saatchi was at the time having difficulties with his landlord, a Japanese property firm, at the former London county hall building.
He apparently suggested his works could be moved to an undeveloped area, known as the old tank space, beside Tate Modern.
It never happened and in the interview it is understood Saatchi attacks Tate Modern for lacking ambition and adventure and, in particular, for failing to represent the young English artists of the past 15 years.
Yesterday, however, Serota disputed the Saatchi offer. “I had one conversation with him,” he said.
“I pointed out it would cost millions to develop the space and that we anyway were planning to use it for ourselves later on.”
Serota also claimed Saatchi had hardly shown any enthusiasm to donate or sell his works to the Tate over the past 15 years — and denied his galleries lacked ambition.
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