2004年12月24日 星期五
Arts, Briefly; Shark Tale
2004年11月29日 星期一
Saatchi clashes with Serota over £200m 'gift' of artworks to Tate
Monday, 29 November 2004
Tate Modern refused an offer by Charles Saatchi to donate his entire £200m collection of modern art, Britain's leading arts patron claimed yesterday.
Tate Modern refused an offer by Charles Saatchi to donate his entire £200m collection of modern art, Britain's leading arts patron claimed yesterday.
Mr Saatchi said the proposal, which would have turned the Tate into the world's foremost collection of contemporary art with his 2,500 works, was spurned by its director, Sir Nicholas Serota, last October because the museum "already had commitments".
Sir Nicholas insisted that the works were offered on loan only, but the disagreement has fuelled tensions between two of the most influential figures in British art.
Last November, Mr Saatchi described the Turner Prize, exhibited at the Tate, as "rehashed claptrap". He said he made his offer when he was having problems with the landlord at his County Hall gallery, close to the Tate Modern on London's Bankside, which opened in May 2003.
"I did offer my collection to Nicholas Serota last year," he said. "I was struggling with the alarming behaviour of the Japanese landlords and I remembered at the time the Tate Modern opened, Nick had told me there were extensions planned that would add half again
to the gallery capacity," Mr Saatchi told The Art Newspaper in a rare interview.
"By the time I offered the collection to Nick, the Tate already had commitments for the extension. So I lost my chance for a tastefully engraved plaque and a 21-gun salute. Now the mood has passed, and I'm happy not to have to visit Tate Modern, or its storage depot, to look at my art."
Asked to assess the Tate as a contemporary art museum, Mr Saatchi praised Sir Nicholas, who has been in the post since 1998, calling him "my hero, to have pulled it off so masterfully".
Mr Saatchi did attack the Tate, saying that its exhibition was disappointing and accusing curators of lacking ambition. He said the Tate, which receives £30m a year in government funding, missed crucial investment opportunities in the 1990s "when even the piddliest budget would have bought you a great many works".
Sir Nicholas told The Art Newspaper: "At no point was there any suggestion that the collection was being offered as a gift."
The works include Tracey Emin's My Bed, Marcus Harvey's portrait of Myra Hindley and Damien Hirst's shark in formaldehyde.
Last month, the Tate asked 23 artists including Lucian Freud, David Hockney and Hirst, to donate works which it said it could no longer afford. It has £56m in lottery funding and is seeking millions more to compete with museums such as New York's Museum of Modern Art.
Sir Nicholas was unavailable for comment yesterday.
THE COLLECTOR AND THE CURATOR
CHARLES SAATCHI
BORN Baghdad, Iraq in 1943, son of a merchant
EARLY DAYS Set up advertising agency with his brother Maurice in 1970. Became household name for 1979 election campaign
HIGHLIGHTS His 1997 Sensation exhibition, with its portrait of Myra Hindley
LOWLIGHTS A cast of the artist Marc Quinn's head, made from his own frozen blood, melted after builders pulled out the freezer's plug
WHAT HE SAYS "There's nothing complicated about me"
WHAT CRITICS SAY "A man of crushes cars, clothes, artists" (former wife Kay Hartenstein)
SIR NICHOLAS SEROTA
BORN London, 1946
EARLY DAYS An exhibition organiser for the Arts Council in the early 1970s
HIGHLIGHTS His reign at the Tate Modern, winning credit for its success
LOWLIGHTS Abandoning plans for a Hirst retrospective at the Tate Modern after Saatchi decided not to co-operate
WHAT HE SAYS "We're putting on a mix of popular and academic shows. I don't think it's a choice between the two. It's essential to have both"
WHAT CRITICS SAY "Serota is dangerously narrow in tastes" (Brian Sewell, art critic)
It's your bed, lie in it, Tate tells Saatchi
THE sound of elephant dung being thrown reverberated across the British art world yesterday as an indignant Charles Saatchi said that he had offered his £200 million collection as a gift to Tate Modern, but that the museum had turned him down.
A clearly wounded Mr Saatchi broke his usual silence to make a stinging attack on Sir Nicholas Serota, the Tate’s director, and to accuse the museum of being “disengaged” from the art community.
The controversial art collector, who is married to Nigella Lawson, the celebrity cook, said that Sir Nicholas had snubbed his offer to move his world- famous collection — including Chris Ofili’s Holy Virgin Mary made from elephant dung, Damien Hirst’s shark pickled in formaldehyde and Tracey Emin’s unmade bed — to the museum.
The advertising magnate used a rare interview to accuse the Tate of hosting “disappointing” exhibitions and said that it lacked “ambition”.
In a lofty discussion about “immortality”, Mr Saatchi said: “I did offer my collection to Nicholas Serota at the Tate last year. This was about the time I was struggling with the problems at County Hall — both the alarming behaviour of the Japanese landlords and my failure to get a grip on how to use the space well.
“I remembered that at the time Tate Modern opened, Nick had told me that there were new extensions planned that would add half again to the gallery capacity. But by the time I offered the collection to Nick, the Tate already had commitments for the extension.
“So I lost my chance for a tastefully engraved plaque and a 21-gun salute. And now the mood has passed and I’m happy not to have to visit Tate Modern, or its storage depot, to look at my art.” Mr Saatchi’s comments, in an interview with The Art Newspaper, are just the latest chapter in a long-running feud between the art collector and Sir Nicholas, the two most influential figures of “Brit Art”.
Last year Mr Saatchi dismissed the Turner Prize, exhibited at the Tate, as “pseudo-controversial rehashed claptrap”.
The Tate strongly denied last night that Mr Saatchi had offered his collection as a gift. Commentators in the art world said that the multimillionaire may have decided to stir up a high-profile row to increase interest in his new exhibition of contemporary painters, which opens in January. The Saatchi Gallery has failed to attract the number of visitors its owner had expected since it moved to the oak-panelled rooms of the former Greater London Council headquarters on the South Bank. Its most recent exhibitions have been mauled by critics.
Even before the opening of the County Hall gallery in April last year, many believed that Mr Saatchi had chosen an exhibition space as close as possible to Tate Modern, which is just a 15-minute walk along the Thames.
The Tate yesterday said in a statement: “Last year Charles Saatchi, then having difficulties with his landlord at County Hall, approached Nicholas Serota with the suggestion that he would like to move displays of his collection from County Hall to the derelict ‘oil tank’ spaces at Tate Modern. Nicholas Serota explained that these spaces could not be used without major expenditure.
“At no point was there any suggestion that the collection was being offered as a gift to Tate.
“Of course the offer of a gift of major works from Charles Saatchi’s collection would be a most generous gesture and would be much welcomed by Tate’s trustees. They have always made it clear that they would be very pleased to acquire, by gift or purchase, major works from the Saatchi collection.”
Referring sarcastically to Sir Nicholas as “my hero”, Mr Saatchi, who has been dismissed by Hirst as “childish”, said of the Tate: “The curators should get out more and see more studios and grassroots shows. They evidently lack an adventurous curatorial ambition . . . The Tate seems sadly disengaged from the young British art community. It ought to have reflected the energy and diversity of British art over the past 15 years in both its exhibitions and collecting policy. Puzzlingly, museums in Europe and the US are far more interested in examining Britain’s recent artistic achievements.”
2004年11月28日 星期日
Saatchi turns a cold eye on Britart legacy
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.
2004年11月27日 星期六
Another Round for Saatchi vs. Tate
Published: November 27, 2004
Jonathan Player for The New York Times "Hymn," by Damien Hirst, at Charles Saatchi's gallery, a short walk from the Tate.
| |
|
When the space opened, contemporary-art experts said Mr. Saatchi had purposely chosen a space near the Tate Modern to compete with it. He has given little to the Tate. In 1992, he donated works by many young British artists, a gift estimated then to be worth about $170,000.
Unlike the Tate, which is free, the Saatchi Gallery charges $16.50 for admission. It has not attracted the large number of visitors Mr. Saatchi had hoped, experts said. They also said Mr. Saatchi was looking at spaces in central London, where he would like to move the gallery in an effort to draw more of the art world, rather than the tourist crowd that goes to the London Eye.
Since the space at County Hall opened, it has attracted 800,000 visitors, said Ben Rawlingson Plant, a spokesman for Mr. Saatchi. Mr. Saatchi declined to be interviewed for this article, but in a question-and-answer piece scheduled to appear in The Daily Telegraph tomorrow and in The Art Newspaper next week, Mr. Saatchi says that Sir Nicholas rejected a recent offer of his collection of hundreds of contemporary artworks, largely by young British artists like Damien Hirst, Tracey Emin, the Chapman brothers, Rachel Whiteread, Marc Quinn, Peter Doig and Chris Ofili. Sir Nicholas denies such an offer was made.
"Last year Charles Saatchi, then having difficulties with his landlord at County Hall, approached me about moving his exhibition program from County Hall to the derelict oil tank spaces at the Tate Modern," Sir Nicholas said in a telephone interview Friday, referring to raw space off Turbine Hall in the museum, a converted power station. "I explained that it would cost tens of millions of pounds to make the space usable, and in the long term the Tate wanted to use that space for its permanent collection. At no point did he offer to give his collection to the Tate."
Mr. Saatchi's collection is well known to American museumgoers. The exhibition "Sensation: Young British Artists From the Saatchi Collection" opened at the Royal Academy here in 1997 and then traveled to the Hamburger Bahnhof in Berlin and finally to the Brooklyn Museum of Art, where Rudolph W. Giuliani, mayor of New York City at the time, called the exhibition "sick stuff" and threatened to cut off city subsidies because Mr. Ofili's painting of the Virgin Mary included clumps of elephant dung.
Over the years Mr. Saatchi has gained an international reputation for going on wild shopping sprees, spending millions of dollars on the works of contemporary artists and then selling them in bulk, sending the prices for some of these artists on a roller-coaster ride. He bought dozens of works by the Italian artist Sandro Chia, then turned around and sold them, thus depressing Mr. Chia's market.
A year ago Mr. Saatchi sold about a dozen works by Mr. Hirst back to the artist and his dealer, Jay Jopling, in a deal that people familiar with the negotiations said was worth around $15 million. Over the years Mr. Saatchi has also sold dozens of artworks at a time at Sotheby's and Christie's in auctions in New York and London.
Sir Nicholas pointed out that if Mr. Saatchi was so eager to give his collection to the Tate, he could have offered to donate "Ghost," a seminal sculpture by Ms. Whiteread that art lovers say should stay in Britain. Instead, last month, the National Gallery of Art in Washington announced that Mitchell P. Rales, a Washington collector, had bought "Ghost," a 1990 plaster cast of a living room modeled after the one from Ms. Whiteread's childhood home in North London, for the gallery. "Ghost," in which window frames, light sockets, a fireplace and grooves left by doors are etched in plaster, had been on view at the Gagosian Gallery in London. Contemporary-art experts said it was worth about $2 million. "I saw it at Gagosian," Sir Nicholas said, "and was told it was not for sale."
2004年11月4日 星期四
A childish spat: Stuckists tear into Britart's finest
Thursday, 4 November 2004
* In this Turner Prize season, some of the biggest names in British art are to be subjected to a first rate character assassination.
* In this Turner Prize season, some of the biggest names in British art are to be subjected to a first rate character assassination.
The Stuckists, a group of contemporary artists opposed to conceptual art, are about to publish their first book. It's called Punk Victorian, and contains some hard-hitting stuff.
Damien Hirst is dismissed as a "Harry Enfield-type character", and "a ridiculous yob artist". The Tate director Sir Nicholas Serota, is a "hypocrite", and Charles Saatchi a "copycat", responsible for a "dysfunctional decade of art".
But it is Tracey Emin who cops the most stick. Before achieving fame, Emin had an affair with the Stuckist, Billy Childish. The book picks over this, and credits Childish with "discovering" her. It also alleges that Emin has erased him from her CV.
"Tracey Emin has hidden a significant part of her life from the world, which, for a confessional artist, is interesting to note," remarks the book's author, Stuckist co-founder Charles Thomson.
Pertinently, the book is published by the National Museum of Liverpool, whose trustees such pillars of the establishment as Sir Neil Cossons and Loyd Grossman.
"The museum was a bit paranoid about libel, but if Saatchi or Tracey sue, we'll have a field day," adds Thomson.
* A bohemian moment at the party for the new Vanity Fair film - written by society superstar Julian Fellowes - on Monday.
In the wee hours, Pandora spotted the film's bubbly, award-winning director Mira Nair, above, chuffing away on what looked (and smelt) like a "jazz cigarette".
"I've no idea what I'm smoking," she smiled, when I asked if illegal substances were being consumed. "Somebody just gave it to me."
There our conversation ended. I'd love to take the matter further, but Nair's agent says she's spent much of the past couple of days in bed, with "a bug', so can't chat.
* Trevor McDonald has made peace with Jonathan Sayeed, the Tory MP who accused him of "having benefited from positive discrimination".
Sayeed has written to Sir Trevor apologising and saying the accusation - in an e-mail to this column - was the result of a typing error.
Sir Trevor has now written back: "I'm glad you explained how it all came about," he says. "I never thought that you would seriously make such a comment. I fully accept what you say, in which case no apology is necessary." Now let that be the end of it!
* How much longer will Naim Attallah stay silent about the memoir of his former employee Jennie Erdal?
Mrs Erdal's book Ghosting claims - as reported by Pandora - that she acted as Attallah's ghostwriter during the 1980s and 1990s. The colourful publisher may well disagree, but has yet to make his feelings public.
Erdal's final chapter might tempt him to, though. "All story-tellers are liars, not to be trusted," it says. "They have an excessive need to make sense of experience, and so things get twisted and shaped to suit."
Says a literary source: "This passage raises questions about how much of her memoir we can actually trust."
* The photographer Bob Carlos Clarke - heir apparent to Helmut Newton - has sold an erotic snap to one of London's top suits.
David Ross, the co-founder of Carphone Warehouse, sneaked into Clarke's latest exhibition on Tuesday, and bought a black and white study of a naked blonde for £3,000.
"We'd no idea who he was till the credit card came out," says a source at the gallery. "It's rather ironic: the model's sitting next to a giant mobile phone, with a keypad that has sexual positions instead of numbers." The work, by the way, is called "Nookia".
2004年10月28日 星期四
Sensation! British movers and shakers are losing their grip on international art
Thursday, 28 October 2004
They are the most powerful players in the multimillion-pound world of art, organising exhibitions that attract thousands or selling works that make headline news - and many, including Charles Saatchi, are based in Britain.
They are the most powerful players in the multimillion-pound world of art, organising exhibitions that attract thousands or selling works that make headline news - and many, including Charles Saatchi, are based in Britain.
But today, in the third annual list of the men and women who matter published by an art magazine, Britain appeared to be losing its grip with the millionaire collector Mr Saatchi falling from sixth to 17th place, having held the top spot in 2002.
Other British names, including the Turner Prize-winning artist Damien Hirst and gallery owners Jay Jopling, Victoria Miro, Maureen Paley and Sadie Coles, have all fallen in the rankings chosen by international critics and academics. Nicholas Serota, the director of the Tate galleries, claimed a place in the top 10 and there are some British "newcomers".
Anish Kapoor, another Turner Prize winner who stunned Americans this year with a giant new work, Cloud Gate, in Chicago, makes his first entry at number 73. Amanda Sharp and Matthew Slotover, founders of the Frieze art fair, which brought thousands of art-lovers and international dealers to London this month, leap in at 32.
This list, also known as the Power 100, in Art Magazine shows America retaining its dominance as the powerhouse of the art market, by virtue of the immense wealth of its collectors. But the list also suggests that as countries such as China stand up to be counted, Britain appears to be losing its influence.
Mr Saatchi topped the rankings when they were launched three years ago but is now replaced by the controversial American dealer Larry Gagosian, who made a major impact in London this year with a spectacular new gallery at King's Cross.
More controversially, Jack Vettriano, the self-taught Scottish artist shunned by major galleries but adored by the public, squeezes in at 100. But there is no space for Tracey Emin or curators such as Norman Rosenthal at the Royal Academy.
Rebecca Wilson, the Art Review's editor, said that Americans remained dominant, but the seats of influence were shifting. "There are countries that are entering the list in a bigger way than before. China is much more prominent than in the past, as is Germany."
The list was not an indicator of artists or dealers in long-term decline, she said, simply a pointer to what had been most exciting in the past year.
Mr Serota maintained third place by virtue of several excellent exhibitions, including Brancusi and Hopper, and initiatives such as encouraging leading artists to donate works. The Scandinavian-Danish artist Olafur Eliasson makes 29th place on the back of his giant sun installation that thrilled Tate Modern visitors last year.
By contrast, Mr Saatchi has proved less successful with his new gallery on the South Bank, which opened with the much criticised exhibition, New Blood. Yet he should not be written off. "He's still the highest ranked British collector. He's still buying and apparently buying more interesting work," said Ms Wilson. Artists on the list tend to be those with financial as well as artistic clout. Money alone will not suffice. Hirst's ranking has gone down because of the poor critical reaction to his collaboration with the photographer David Bailey, she said. But it gets Vettriano on to the list.
"He's not had a major museum show but his past painting sold for £800,000 and he gets £500,000 royalties from images on postcards. He's the highest-selling Scottish artist," she said.
Zaha Hadid and Will Alsop, architects, get a mention. Hadid, who was born in Baghdad but is based in London, moves up a place to 20 after winning the prestigious Pritzker Prize for the Rosenthal Centre for Contemporary Art in Cincinnati. Alsop is a new entrant at 96 for designing several galleries.
Other British entrants are: Nicholas Logsdail, owner of the Lisson Gallery, whose artists include Sol LeWitt, Kapoor and Santiago Sierra, up from 77 to 26; Richard Green, Britain's top dealer by sales with a £95m turnover; Toby Webster, director of The Modern Institute in Glasgow; and Harry Blain and Graham Southern, owners of the Haunch of Venison gallery in London. Hotly tipped for inclusion next year are a younger generation. Among them are Jens Hoffmann, the new curator at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London, and the dealer-curator duo of David Risley and Soraya Rodriguez, whose Zoo Art Fair this month was dedicated to London galleries under three years old.
New York may have the collectors and the big money which makes the whole dizzying art world go round. But London retains a buzz.
THE 10 MOST POWERFUL PEOPLE IN WORLD ART1 Larry Gagosian (Position last year: 4) Known as "GoGo", Gagosian built up major businesses in Los Angeles and New York before moving into London. Now owns the biggest private gallery in the capital.
2 Glenn D Lowry (14)The director of the Museum of Modern Art in New York for the past decade, has directed $850m expansion plans that will see the opening of new headquarters in Manhattan.
3 Nicholas Serota (3) The director of the Tate galleries is sometimes criticised for keeping a tight rein on his empire, but few doubt his dynamic influence.
4Maurizio Cattelan (24) The Italian artist captured British attention when he hung a stuffed horse from the ceiling of Tate Britain - it later sold at auction for $2.1m. Known for his love of controversy.
5Samuel Keller (15) The director of the Art Basel fair since 2000, and the driving force behind its offshoot, Art Basel Miami Beach. Known for his marketing innovation and stylish venues.
6 Dakis Joannou (10) The Greek industrialist and collector made himself the most imposing Mediterranean figure in the arts when he opened the Deste Foundation in 1983.
7William Ruprecht (new) Took over as chief executive officer of Sotheby's auctioneers after Diana Brooks departed in 2000 over the price-fixing scandal. Has since presided over a substantial improvement in the company's position.
8Ronald Lauder (1) The cosmetics millionaire has been a major fundraiser for the new headquarters of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, where he is the chairman.
9Robert Storr (new) Highly regarded curator at the Museum of Modern Art, moved on to the Institute of Fine Arts, New York.
10Takashi Murakami (7): One of the Japanese artist's major works will feature in an exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art.