A Leading Art Collector Is Selling, And the Market Wonders Why

By GRACE GLUECK

Published: November 23, 1989

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.''

ART VIEW; AT THE SAATCHI COLLECTION, A THIN SHOW OF 'NY ART'

By JOHN RUSSELL

Published: January 3, 1988

LEAD: ONE OF THE WORLD'S MOST beautiful exhibition spaces is the one that was confected not so long ago by the English architect Max Gordon for the Saatchi Collection here. It is a mysterious space, in which level is played against level and shape against shape. It is, in fact, something of a thinking man's maze.

ONE OF THE WORLD'S MOST beautiful exhibition spaces is the one that was confected not so long ago by the English architect Max Gordon for the Saatchi Collection here. It is a mysterious space, in which level is played against level and shape against shape. It is, in fact, something of a thinking man's maze. It has a beginning and an end, but along the way between the two we never know quite where we are, and there may even be moments when we don't quite know who we are. In other words, Mr. Gordon takes away our everyday identity and leaves us wide open to new experience. The Saatchi Gallery fine-tunes the art, but it also fine-tunes the visitor.

It would be fair to say that until lately the Saatchis - the family is generally best known for its worldwide activity as the founders of a much-talked-of advertising conglomerate - had never taken a flyer on artists who were genuinely unrecognized. They got them quite early, and they got them in bulk, but they did not get them from the egg. Warhol was Warhol, Judd was Judd, Bartlett was Bartlett, Serra was Serra and Kiefer was Kiefer well before they entered the Saatchi Collection. The contribution of the Saatchis was to choose very well on a gigantic scale and to display those artists in a kind of magical decontamination chamber, where their work came to us purged of all outside associations - intact, complete and in sharp focus. The rooms in question quickly became famous for their generosity of spirit and their distinction of display.

The current show, ''NY Art Now,'' is of quite another kind. As the catalogue admits before we even get to the title page, ''most of the notable art currently made in N.Y. isn't to be found here.'' Never was a truer word spoken. What we can see at the Saatchi Collection, through mid-February, is the work of nine artists, most of whom have in common a university education, a high level of verbal facility and a gift for tunneling into the far reaches of a dead end.

Contrary to what is often said, the ''Neo-Geo'' group, to which most of these artists belong, has not as yet won for itself any kind of solid acceptance. It has been floated, in the way that stock offers are floated, in hopes that collectors will take up the option. Sometimes they have - witness the present exhibition - and sometimes they haven't. The artists themselves have talked up their work so well that we cannot but wonder what it is like. It is shown in ideal conditions at the Saatchi Collection, where we do not for a moment question the commitment. But how thin it is! And how diminished and demeaned are the echoes of earlier and better work that pervade so much of it!

The artists concerned are Ashley Bickerton, Ross Bleckner, Robert Gober, Peter Halley, Jeff Koons, Haim Stainbach, Philip Taaffe, Meyer Vaisman and a group called ''Tim Rollins & K.O.S.'' Most of them share to one degree or another the wish to overthrow what is called ''the primacy of the unique object.'' Whereas artists traditionally aim to make something that is entirely their own and had not existed before, the new inclination is to downplay that ambition in favor of the annexation - or, as it is sometimes called, the appropriation - of existing idioms from the recent past.

This can be seen as a form of stylistic imperialism, in which modes of expression are taken over without reference to the feelings or motivations of those who first evolved them. Those who see the matter in this way are likely to regard much of the work in this show as a form of dimwitted and opportunistic raiding, to which the words ''plagiarism'' and ''theft'' can be applied. Needless to say, this is not the point of view of the artists concerned.

For instance, Mr. Taaffe has said that ''we are constantly losing and regaining our understanding'' of abstract art. What posed real problems of perception 50 years ago is now taken for granted as a form of expression that has won general acceptance. We look at it differently, therefore, and experience it in a different way, just as the act of flying the Atlantic is a different experience today from what it was for Charles Lindbergh in 1927. An art that was based upon ''losing and regaining'' - or even simply on probing and evaluating - our experience of the art of the immediate past could take many legitimate forms.

In the same way, what may seem to some visitors an up-front blankness and silliness here and there in the work may correspond to a perception of blankness and silliness in present-day American life. For instance, in the free-form symposium Dan Cameron has put together in the catalogue, Mr. Koons says, ''I think America has lost, for the individual, the nuances of life. We're in a position of impotence, and it has to do with taking a passive role in our involvement with life.'' A third element in the work is the notion that geometrical abstract painting can by now be taken as a point of departure, or a valid foundation, for many-leveled forms of expression. Mr. Halley, for one, takes established forms of geometrical abstraction and mixes them with references to circuitry and to prison cells in a way that might seem arbitrary or even perverse. But that is not how he sees it. He relates it to his first days in New York, when he noticed how in big office buildings ''the conduits, the supportive structure'' were hidden by marble or by wooden paneling. ''I thought to some extent this was characteristic of contemporary society or of capitalism in general. I aspired to actually ferret out and bring forward some of those structural conditions that existed behind the facades.''

It is also relevant that these are artists who have grown up in a ''give me!'' society, where people take it for granted that their every whim or wish can be fulfilled at a certain price. Whence the allusions in this show to objects of everyday gratification, from a porcelain model railroad train that was built to carry bourbon to the works in which consumer goods are racked up on shelves.

So, what we have in this show is a long series of individual ruminations, every one of which may be exploited to advantage in an art world that is ready to put up with almost anything in the name of novelty. It also facilitates the marketing of these objects that they have a high recognition factor. There is in most of them, that is to say, a recurrent element, whether of subject matter or of physical substance, that reassures the client.

I for one accept this exhibition as a expression of intelligent disarray before the problems of making art in the late 1980's. The first time round, there is enough to engage the curiosity of any fair-minded visitor. The second time round, this particular visitor began to see much of the work rather as a crafty imitation of art or a tenacious holding operation than as the real thing. The third time round, he stayed with one or two of the images - Mr. Gober's kitchen sink-turned-tombstone and half buried in long grass, for instance, and the elegant, plain geometrical statement (borrowed, but still cogent) of Mr. Halley's ''Before and After'' - but found that many another was fading fast.

The outsider in this particular pack of artists is Tim Rollins, who works on a collective basis with children from an unprivileged area in the Bronx. Something of their wild and spontaneous vitality permeates their work - notably in the ''Amerika'' series, which is painted with oil and china markers over pages from Franz Kafka's great study of an imaginary America. Something of Joan Miro dances along with these enterprises, and with it a direct access to an unconscious that as yet knows nothing of the market.

Time is not lost in this exhibition, which has drawn a large if sometimes hostile audience and will have a little niche of its own in the history of taste. (The present show is part I of a survey of New York art; Part II will follow later.) Where idioms are annexed, we are entitled to prefer their original form, just as we are entitled to prefer the Barnett Newman who wrote a foreword to Prince Peter Kropotkin's memoirs to the young people who fool around with it now that Newman is dead and gone.

Nor does the manipulation of motifs taken from Bridget Riley look very convincing in Miss Riley's own city. But these, too, are small echoes of a large history, and one that is not yet concluded.