China Celebrates the Year of the Art Market

Lucas Schifres/Bloomberg News

Yue Minjun in front of his 2006 painting “Seen in the Grass Land” in his Beijing studio. The demand for, and price of, Chinese art around the world has been soaring.

By CAROL VOGEL

Published: December 24, 2006

COLLECTORS of contemporary art had a new set of names to learn this year: those of Chinese artists whose careers are soaring in a new and frenzied sector of the market. Much of the art is politically charged, with references to Mao Zedong, Tiananmen Square and, increasingly, globalization and consumer culture. Among the hottest names are Zhang Xiaogang, whose “Bloodline Series” consists of portraits set during the Cultural Revolution; the painter Yue Minjun, whose portraits of Chinese men look very much like himself; and Zhang Huan, a conceptual artist who produces works like “To Raise the Water Level in a Fish Pond.” (That piece was part of a performance in which Mr. Zhang photographed local workers standing in a pool of water to show how little effect they had on the water.)

These images can be found in galleries, art fairs and auction houses in every one of the world’s art-buying capitals, often fetching several million dollars apiece. Charles Saatchi, the London advertising magnate, collector and gallery owner, has begun snapping up works by Chinese artists, many of which he plans to exhibit in his new gallery, under construction on Kings Road in London.

“In a single year we sold over $60 million worth of Chinese contemporary art, whereas in 2005 we sold only about $15 million,” said Henry Howard-Sneyd, Sotheby’s managing director in Asia and Australia. In April, the auction house devoted a special New York sale to this category that brought $13.2 million. The prices have been climbing steadily ever since.

A November auction at Christie’s, which holds its Chinese contemporary art sales in Hong Kong, brought in $68 million. Yet Christie’s experts in New York and London think it’s a mistake to market these artists in a narrow category. As a result the auction house also sprinkles such works into its general postwar and contemporary art sales. (Sotheby’s holds auctions devoted strictly to Chinese contemporary art in New York and Hong Kong.)

Whether the boom in prices for Chinese art will last is anyone’s guess. “It may feel like the first flush of fashion, but it’s actually a much deeper market,” said Brett Gorvy, one of the heads of Christie’s postwar and contemporary art department worldwide. Mr. Howard-Sneyd said the soaring sales totals had more to do with years of underrecognition of these artists rather than inflated bidding.

So it may be an oversimplification to predict that this is a bubble about to burst. “While there has been a rapid internationalization of Chinese contemporary art,” Mr. Howard-Sneyd said, “there’s bound to be a correction, and then prices will simply level off.”

I Like Ur Art: Saatchi Creates an Online Hangout for Artists

Denise Parsons

“Being an artist is a solo endeavor, and this is a safe way to see what others are doing,” says Denise Parsons, an art student in San Francisco who shows her work, above, on the Saatchi site.

By CAROL VOGEL

Published: December 18, 2006

Julie Ann Travis , 23, a graduate student at the California College of the Arts in San Francisco, is curious to see what her peers are up to and to share some of her latest work. So recently she posted a self-portrait in which her head is buried in a pile of dirt at Stuart (saatchi-gallery.co.uk/stuart), the latest addition to a recently redesigned Web site for the Saatchi Gallery in London.

The brainchild of the London-based advertising magnate and collector Charles Saatchi, this social networking outlet — a kind of MySpace knockoff for artists — is causing something of a sensation, boosting traffic at the gallery’s Web site overall to more than three million hits a day.

In May Mr. Saatchi, famed for spotting young unknowns and turning them into art-world superstars, created a section on his Web site for artists of all ages to post their work at no charge. It is called Your Gallery, and now boasts contributions by about 20,700 artists, including 2,000 pieces of video art.

Everything there is for sale, with neither the buyer nor the seller paying a cent to any dealer or other middleman. About 800 new artists have been signing up each week.

And since Stuart (shorthand for “student art”) went online last month, some 1,300 students (including 450 in the United States) have created Web pages there. No one vets the quality or style of the art.

With dealers and collectors scouring student shows for undiscovered talent and students hunting for dealers to represent them, Mr. Saatchi has tapped a vein that can’t stop gushing. If Stuart gains anything like the cachet of MySpace, it has the potential to morph from a nonprofit venture into a gold mine for Mr. Saatchi.

For now, he said, he is simply enjoying the role of spectator. “When I launched the site, I took the view that the best thing was to leave it alone for the first year and purposely not buy anything, because I didn’t want to compromise what the site was supposed to do: appeal to a wide group of students,” he said.

His office, meanwhile, is fielding e-mail messages and calls from dealers, museum curators and directors, and collectors around the world who have discovered new work at the site and want to meet some of the artists in their studios. (Of the 20,700 or so artists at Your Gallery, roughly 6,000 are from Britain and 6,000 from the United States, with the rest scattered across the world.)

But for students visiting Stuart, the main attraction for now is linking up with their peers.

In addition to lists of her favorite artists, books, films and television shows, Ms. Travis has posted the name of a new friend on her page at Stuart: Erhan Ozturk, a photography student at T. C. Maltepe University in Istanbul whose work she viewed at the site.

“I don’t know him,” Ms. Travis said, although they have conversed electronically. And while she doesn’t love his art, she said, “I think it’s pretty interesting.” (New friends tend to reciprocate: Mr. Ozturk lists Ms. Travis on his Web page, and with a simple click, visitors viewing his work can connect to hers.)

Some students hear of Stuart by word of mouth from friends, and some through their schools, many of which were alerted to the site by Mr. Saatchi’s office. In addition to a free Web page, each student has the opportunity to share ideas, inspiration and advice on a discussion board, an arena that can forge new friendships and foster exposure on expanding lists of friends.

The site’s Web masters have ensured that creating a personal page is as easy as singing up for an e-mail account. After supplying a name, gender, school, college, country and e-mail address, each student must post at least one image.

“Electronically is the way we tend to communicate these days,” said Denise Parsons, 39, a student at the San Francisco Art Institute who has a page on Stuart. “Being an artist is a solo endeavor, and this is a safe way to see what others are doing.”

Mr. Saatchi said he was startled by the rapid response, which had driven home how “students very much need to talk to other students about their work.”

As one of the first people to exhibit the work of unknown British artists (and now stars) like Damien Hirst, Jake and Dinos Chapman, Rachel Whiteread and Chris Ofili, Mr. Saatchi is a natural magnet for students who hope that someday they too will be discovered by a kingmaker.

With Mr. Saatchi’s willingness to take on emerging artists (although some fault his propensity for selling off their work as soon as they get hot), many students dream of one day being shown in his new gallery, a 50,000-square-foot space on Kings Road in the Chelsea section of London that is scheduled to open next summer. Until then Mr. Saatchi is without a gallery, having closed his former site on the South Bank of the Thames in 2005.

The Saatchi name gives the Web site “a certain cachet and legitimacy,” said David W. Halsell, a 39-year-old installation, video and performance artist who is a student at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh.

Mr. Saatchi said he seized on the idea for remaking his overall Web site, www.saatchi-gallery.co.uk, “because I haven’t got my gallery to play with.” With the site’s revamp in May, it began with an online daily magazine and blog offering art news and reviews, an interactive forum in which visitors debate art issues, a chat room for art enthusiasts and a page where children can create and display art.

Stuart grew naturally out of and Mr. Saatchi’s voracious appetite for the new. “I’m glued,” he said. “I spend hours a day looking at students’ work on the site.”

He said he was thinking seriously about allotting rotating space in his new gallery to artists discovered at Your Gallery and Stuart. “There’s something thrilling about seeing the work of young artists for the first time even before their school shows,” he said.

The diverse offerings have caught the eye of contemporary-art experts like Olivier Varenne, director of the Museum of Old and New Art being established in Tasmania, the island state of Australia. He recently contacted the Saatchi Gallery by e-mail. “I am always looking for new talent,” he wrote, and since then he has arranged studio visits with four artists whose work he finds interesting.

In addition to linking artists with new friends and dealers, the site has in some cases enabled artists to reconnect with their old schools. Tori Murphy, a 26-year-old student at Kingston University in Surrey, England, who has heard from a gallery in Dublin and one in London, said she had been contacted by Repton, her old boarding school, which ended up buying a painting for nearly $1,400.

“I’ve done a couple of commissions, but this is my first sale,” Ms. Murphy said. Yet what she likes best about Stuart is not so much the commercial rewards as the ability to gain access to other students and their work.

“Before we were very limited to our school,” she said. “This is the first time I have had the chance to see what’s happening all over the world.”

From maverick to one of the herd

From The Sunday Times

December 3, 2006

Damien Hirst’s private collection elicits a sense of déjà vu. Has he lost his cutting edge, asks Waldemar Januszczak

A large slab of Damien Hirst’s art collection has gone on show at the Serpentine Gallery, and the sum of £100m is being bandied about as its value. That, apparently, it what the Murderme collection, as he calls it, is insured for. It’s a whole heap of money. And even if £100m is too neat and round a number to be true, it certainly gives you a sense of scale. We are talking about a serious collector here: a player.

Hirst has never been one of those artists who sees his role as making art. Of course, making art is part of it. But even the most casual perusal of his career finds him having a go at so many other things. He’s been a restaurateur, a decorator, a film-maker, a curator, a publisher, a property developer and, most recently, a multimillionaire. And wasn’t that him a few years back, mouthing the words to that catchy chart-topping football ditty, Vindaloo, with Fat Les? Yes, it was.

Since we generally prefer our artists to be single-minded, and would, I guess, trust them more that way, this unusual busyness of Hirst’s can trigger our flibbertigibbet alarm. Get back in the studio, Damien, we chorus, and make some art. But what if having a finger in many pies has replaced the long, lone slog as the most productive approach for a modern creative? What if refusing to settle is the new way of going forwards? If multiskilling is the future — and I am sure it is — then Hirst realised it long before the rest of us.

Apart from his films, which are spectacularly bad, his various departures have generally been worth the effort. His restaurants are fun. His decor is enticing. Vindaloo was a decent football anthem, as football anthems go. And the exhibitions he has curated have been genuinely important, notably Freeze, in 1988, which kick-started Brit Art. So, is collecting another distraction he does particularly well? The Serpentine show certainly proves that Hirst owns lots of exciting things. The busy hang, orchestrated by Hirst himself, crowds the gallery with catchy sights. There’s a Bacon, a Warhol, a Koons. So stuffed is the gallery with cross- generational modern-art goodies that the contents have overflowed onto the grass outside, where they seem to be taking the mickey out of the usual sorts of sculpture you find in London’s parks. Michael Joo’s life-size family of Peter Pan types appear to be relieving themselves on the lawn. Angus Fairhurst’s one-armed gorilla is an amusing Brit Art alternative to those polite dolphins you find on fountains.

Having been perfectly placed to acquire fine examples of the work of his Brit Art contemporaries, Hirst has been particularly astute in vacuuming up the output of Sarah Lucas. He recently bought all the works by her that Charles Saatchi was offloading, and must now be the world’s biggest collector of her art. As Lucas is second only to Hirst himself in terms of Brit Art importance, this greedy gathering of her stuff is a smart bit of acquisition. When it comes to seeing Britishness for what it is, Lucas has no peers. Her gloriously absurd sculpture of a shire horse pulling a cart, inside which are dumped two giant marrows, is a hilarious townie’s gag about Archers Britain that manages both to mock the tastes of rural folk and to celebrate them. But in case we imagine she has gone all Stubbsy on us, and abandoned her usual fascination with the squalid mind-set of the Sun-reading urban bloke, the gallery contains a vandalised BMW, inside which the automated arm of a road yob pumps out the gross one-armed salute that is such a familiar sight on our dual carriageways today.

Lots of the things Hirst owns strike you as a tribute to himself. Stuff with blood in it. Stuff about death. The impressive Steven Gregory gives us a gruesome row of human skulls decorated with beads or slivers of lapis lazuli. The show’s most grisly exhibit, by John Isaacs, seems to show the blubbery, blood-soaked remains of a hunted whale. One of the blobs of blubber still has an eye in it, which looks at you. Creepy.

This fascination with darkness and gore has played a key role, too, in Hirst’s well-heeled pursuit of blue-chip exhibitors. The Warhols he prefers are car crashes and electric chairs, not Marilyns or Elizabeth Taylors. His Bacon is a superbly angry Study for a Figure at the Base of a Crucifixion, painted in 1944, which belongs to the same series as that momentous triptych in the Tate, in which a pack of howling monsteroids, half hyena, half human, projectile-vomit their cosmic rage in the vague direction of the crucifixion subject. Bacon’s triptych is one of the Tate’s most famous possessions. I still remember the impact it had on me as schoolboy, and so, surely, does Hirst.

But buying it now for a shedload of money strikes me as an act of nostalgia rather than a display of proactive collecting. When you buy Warhol, Bacon, Koons, you are hardly being a pioneer or an instigator. You’re being a trophy-gatherer. For collecting to be something more than mere accumulation, for the possession of things to add up to a cultural act worth noting and commemorating in an ambitious show, it is necessary for that collection to have a sense of higher purpose, an agenda. Does this selection have one? Not that I could discern. There’s lots of nostalgia discernible in various corners of this surprisingly dated display. In particular, the show kept reminding me of Saatchi’s old gallery at Boundary Road, which Hirst would have known so well and whose aesthetics he seems almost to be quoting. So many of the old Saatchi favourites are here: Sean Landers, Haim Steinbach, Koons, Lucas, Gavin Turk, Marcus Harvey. Looking across at Koons’s neon-lit vacuum cleaners, shimmering so enticingly with urban commodity cool, I suffered a particularly strong attack of déjà vu and was thrust straight back to the wonderful Saatchi show that first unveiled them.

Saatchi, of course, was the man who pioneered modern collecting: he’s the prototype all the other nouveau collectors stoking the art market’s fires to crazy temperatures are attempting to copy. But the difference between Saatchi and Hirst as collectors is that Saatchi actually changed something. When he put his Brit Art holdings on show at the Royal Academy in that notorious Sensation exhibition, he achieved lots of things. He put Brit Art on the international map. He drummed up a huge audience for new art. He annoyed the hell out of large numbers of RAs. Sensation had a powerful cultural impact on many fronts. Hirst’s Murderme collection isn’t in that league. It’s a perfectly pleasant and lively show, but it’s the handiwork of a follower, not a creator. And that is really surprising.

In the Darkest Hour There May Be Light: Works from Damien Hirst’s Murderme Collection, Serpentine Gallery, W2, until Jan 28

BritArt: The next generation

Charles Saatchi created a sensation in the art world by putting the work of Damien Hirst, Tracey Emin and the Chapman Brothers on display. Now he's looking to find the next generation of talent with 'Stuart', a non-profit online gallery for students with something to show. In its first week, 600 have signed up - and the website has attracted 20 million hits. Watch this space

By Louise Jury
Thursday, 30 November 2006

Not all of them will end up in his collection, but the latest initiative from Charles Saatchi offers young art students a greater chance of success. The man who introduced the world to artists Damien Hirst, Tracey Emin, Rachel Whiteread and Sarah Lucas, and who is credited with changing the face of British art with his explosive Sensation exhibition in 1997, has now launched his latest venture, Stuart.

The Stuart (as in "student art") gallery, gives artists the opportunity to show their work in a virtual exhibition space from where they can be picked up by collectors. Such a facility has clearly been needed: since introducing a dedicated platform for art students, the Saatchi website has seen its hit-rate double to three million a day and, in its first week alone, Stuart attracted 600 submissions from around the world.

A non-profit-making site, where artists can sell their work without being charged commission, Stuart could be considered a logical extension of Charles Saatchi's long-term interest in student work. A subsection of Saatchi's website Your Gallery, which already hosts a free global exhibition space for 18,000 artists, Stuart has been described as a unique opportunity for graduates hoping to get their work recognised on a wider stage. In addition, the discussion board on the site enables artists to share ideas, inspirations and advice with each other.

"When I was a student we would never have dreamt of having something like this," says the artist Paula Rego. "It's brilliant for students to show their work and see what is going on with other students worldwide."

Grayson Perry, the winner of the 2003 Turner Prize, agrees. "It's innovative ideas like this which will bring on new waves and changes in art. This type of innovation will always produce new, exciting things."

And although the man famous for showcasing the YBAs (Young British Artists) has not yet bought anything from the site, he does insist that he views the work of every new student who signs up. "There are a number of really very interesting artists on Stuart that I have already passed on to dealers that I work closely with, both in the UK and in the States," says Saatchi.

So far, around a third of the students are from the UK, one third from America and one third from the rest of the world, from Turkey to Slovakia. Yet the Saatchi Gallery contacted only art galleries in London to kickstart the process. The surge of interest appears to stem from word of mouth.

Nevertheless, not everyone is convinced by the project. "Sometimes you come back from an art school visit, saying to anyone who will listen: you just wouldn't believe how terrible some of them are," says The Independent's art critic Tom Lubbock. "Now the world can see. The serious question is whether these sites will provide artists - good or bad - with a significant alternative, direct-sale marketplace, which bypasses the gallery system with its enormous percentages. That seems doubtful.

"Most rich art-collectors aren't as bold as Saatchi is himself - they'd be reluctant to buy on a whim out of the blue. But another possibility is the development of a very broad 'general public' art market. That would presumably mean artists devoting themselves to relatively cheap, home-sized and maybe reproducible artworks, rather than big, expensive, unique museum pieces. For ambitious artists that would be a big and perhaps intolerable reversal of priorities."

In the meantime, the site continues to grow apace. While he may not be directly responsible for creating the next generation of Young British Artists, Saatchi is certainly the driving force behind them. Is the next big thing already online? Time will tell.

www.saatchi-gallery.co.uk/stuart

Sophie Rees, 21, Fine Art Painting, University of Brighton

"Stuart is benefiting students on a global scale. It enables us to communicate our work, ideas and philosophies internationally. As students, we do not usually have the facilities and capital to exhibit our work regularly; the Saatchi website has given us the opportunity to do so."

Federico Gallo, 31, MA Communication Art & Design, Royal College of Art

"Stuart is a fun, fast way to exchange contact details, thoughts, info and samples - almost like having many talented minds from all over the world in one room. It is an easy way (the website is nicely designed and simple to use) to see and be seen, to learn about new, creative people, techniques and opportunities."

Tori Murphy, 26, Fine Art, Kingston University

"It's the first time as art students that we can communicate with and see the work of our contemporaries from all over the world. I have already been in contact with people from Canada, Dublin and all over the States."

Ally Mobbs, 22, Fine Art: Print-Making and Digital Media, University of the Arts, London (UAL)

"Stuart is a good alternative to other networking sites, as it offers online space to art students. After graduation I could quickly find possible collaborators on it or people with experience and knowledge that I do not have to ask for help."

Vicky Newman, 22, Fine Art, Falmouth College of Arts

"It is quite easy to feel 'safe' in a bubble of tutors and fellow students, and quite out of touch with the real world. I have found Stuart excellent in putting me in contact with new voices of other students around the world, giving fresh interpretations of my work and hopefully preparing me for life after a BA."

Jayne Archard, 22, Fine Art, Kingston University

"It appeals to me as an online exhibition space - I can share my work, ideas and interests with other artists beyond the studio environment. There's something really exciting about being involved with this new and fast-growing online art community. It gives me an invaluable chance to network with new people in creative fields."

Eleanor Lindsay Fynn, 25, MA Photography and Urban Culture, Goldsmiths College

"I use Stuart as a means to find other artists working around similar themes to me. At the moment I am curating a show on 'Alienation' using both known and unknown artists, and have been building connections and getting ideas through Stuart."

Mark Davey, 21, BA school, The Slade School of Fine Art

"I put my work on Stuart because it's a great new way to get your work seen by all types of people, and I like how it is people's own content that is beginning to be at the forefront of what the internet is."

Julie Bennett, 35, Fine Art, Kensington and Chelsea College

"It's a unique opportunity to have your work viewed by thousands of people worldwide who are serious about art. Being able to view works of your contemporaries around the world is a valuable source as a student so you can start to see the trends that are happening today. You can also contact everyone on the site and ask how they did something or, indeed, commission them to do something similar for you, giving you a feeling of supporting art at the very beginning."

Ian Larson, 25, BA school, The Slade School of Fine Art

"I believe that having a place to exhibit your art to as many people as possible for free is great and in that way the Stuart site has started something for a lot of artists, galleries and collectors to think about and view."

Stefanie Kirlew, 23, BA Fine Art/History of Art, Goldsmiths College

"Stuart is a fantastic networking tool for all art students. It provides an excellent opportunity to meet, share ideas, and chat with others who foster similar interests, as well as providing a space to display your work that is viewed by millions of people all over the globe each day."

Stuart Hartley, 36, MA Fine Art, The Slade School of Fine Art

"What the site gives is the opportunity to have a web presence for free (important student factor), and in turn this gives the opportunity for my work to be seen by both prospective galleries and collectors alike. It also allows me to see work by other up-and-coming artists from institutions worldwide and to contact them about their work to discuss shared concerns."

Biteback: Richard Brooks

From The Sunday Times

November 26, 2006

• Ouch. I winced at the torture scene in Casino Royale, in which Bond’s genitals are beaten. The film has been given a 12A certificate, so parents can bring their kiddies along. To get past the censor, the British Board of Film Classification advised some edits of shots concentrating on Bond’s pained face and close-ups of the torture rope.

When I saw it at my local cinema, there were not only some under-12s present, but even a baby. It cried every so often, presumably out of boredom at the 2hr 20min length. The BBFC, by the way, has received complaints about the torture scene.

But the most horrendous scene of all was a shot of a grinning Richard Branson at Miami airport, plus a couple of his Virgin aircraft. His appetite for self-promotion remains undiminished.

Mind you, even the Branson plug was not as sickening as the number of online-gambling ads in the trailers before Casino Royale began. Such a wonderful incentive for youngsters to gamble. Tessa Jowell, our minister for encouraging casinos, would be so happy.

Bet she wishes she was back on good old Five Live.

Fair enough, but there’s a throwaway line at the end of the press release, spotted by The Art Newspaper, which says that running in tandem with the show are 20 photos from Gap’s private collection. They might as well set up a Gap store inside the gallery to flog some clothes, too.

• I had an intriguing chat with the Royal Academician Tom Phillips at a dinner given by the Flowers gallery. Phillips, a keen ping-pong player, told me how Charles Saatchi held table-tennis soirées with him, Salman Rushdie, Alan Yentob and Howard Jacobson at his Eaton Square home. Saatchi even hired a coach to improve his game, but still lost most of his matches.

Saatchi is likely to want to feature Chinese artists in the first show at his new London gallery. I trust he’s better at ping-pong diplomacy.

• Lauren Booth, Cherie Blair’s half-sister, is currently on ITV’s I’m a Celebrity — Get Me out of Here. When she does get out, she’ll have a book to sell. It’s not an exposé of any rumble in the jungle, but a memoir of her time as a 17-year-old living with her dad, the actor Tony Booth. Funnily enough, I’m told it’s not a “life was just misery” book.

Picture me in Miami

From The Times

November 25, 2006

Long famed for sun, sea and OAPs, Miami is gaining a name as a vibrant centre for contemporary art. Morgan Falconer explores a city reinventing itself

Coming from Britain, I always thought that the private homes of private collectors were, well, private. Charles Saatchi may throw open a portion of his collection for public perusal, but you can bet that he’ll never let you into his home. I had heard much of the generous openness of Miami’s collectors, but I never realised that I’d be able to land in Miami, make a couple of calls and find myself at the door of one of the most important collectors in the United States. I’m not greeted by a maid, but by Rosa de la Cruz herself, who leads me through a house laden with sufficient material for about five strong solo exhibitions. This is as good a primer as any for Art Basel Miami Beach, one of the world’s most glamorous art fairs.

De la Cruz’s house is devoted to art — paintings, sculptures and installations arranged by artists flown in especially for the purpose. She showed me some of the most recent paintings by the newest names, such as Kelley Walker, and works purchased from shows in London and elsewhere in Europe. (You can tour her house online at tinyurl.com/yc6n3r.) We went into the dining room to see an installation by Christian Holstad which involved a woolly, tentacled gas mask construction (left). Upstairs, we looked at Assume Vivid Astro Focus, a fantastical scene blending nightclub, skating rink and video installation. But de la Cruz’s thirst is not quenched, so she will certainly be visiting the fifth Art Basel Miami Beach fair. It’s the powerful offspring of the important Art Basel, and 200 of the world’s most significant galleries will be coming to the Convention Centre for it.

Like many of her neighbours, de la Cruz doesn’t just collect fine art, she collects design as well (two sets of Frank Gehry furniture made of steamed and twisted wood sit near her french windows). And to cater for that hunger the second Design Miami fair is being held this week. It’s an event that gives space to 18 of the world’s leading modern design galleries. It’s a serious business — the Pompidou Centre in Paris has brought some of its design collection to exhibit in a satellite venue. But serious or not, shoppers will also relax: I understand that one does business in the morning, lounges on the beach in the afternoon, and come nightfall one gallivants with abandon around the faded Art Deco splendour of the nearby poolside bars and restaurants that line the nearby Collins Avenue.

Miami Basel has come to be seen as a catalyst and symbol for widespread changes in the area as a whole. In the 1980s the city was dilapidated, poor and famous only for druglords, pensioners and vulgarity. Although it remains one of the poorest cities in the US, parts of it are starting to show a fabulous revival. One sign of this is the Setai, the new towering beach-front development recently created by a chain of luxury hotels in Asia and the Far East.

One of the most significant figures in Miami is Craig Robins, the 42-year-old property developer and art collector who is largely responsible for the revival of the city’s design district. He says that the marriage of Art Basel and Miami Beach makes a lot of sense. “What you’ve got here is the best and most serious art fairs in the world occurring in one of the places that is also the most fun. It’s the combination of a deep cultural substance with a really vibrant city.”

What undoubtedly lured the Basel organisers to this new location, however, is the wealth and accessibility of the private collections in the city. The Wynwood district, for instance, may be a rundown mélange of light industry, housing and cheap shops, but it is home to world-class art: one warehouse encloses the Rubell Collection, a massive trove amassed by Don Rubell (brother of the Studio 54 co-founder Steve) and his wife Mera; another houses one part of the collection of Marty Margulies, a real-estate potentate with a gargantuan appetite for sculpture and photography. Other prominent collectors sit on the boards of the city’s public museums, Miami Art Central and the Museum of Modern Art North Miami.

It wasn’t until a significant generation of Cuban exiles arrived in the 1990s, bringing figures such as José Bedia, that Miami’s art scene began to come alive. The prominence of the collectors and the arrival of new galleries is persuading artists to stay.

One could put all this new activity down to Art Basel, but the renaissance probably predates it. As Robins says: “I started my business in South Beach, a place for film, music and fashion. Maybe it didn’t have substance, but it was perhaps the only place in the world where everything was about style. Maybe it was less sophisticated, but it has always advocated creativity and individuality.”

Art Basel Miami Beach (www.artbaselmiamibeach.com), Dec 7-10; Design Miami (www.designmiami.com), Dec 8-10.

British Airways Holidays offer a three-night break to the five-star Setai Hotel (www.setai.com) in Miami from £1,145 per person departing Dec 1-16. The price includes return scheduled flights from Heathrow and accommodation. The above is subject to availability and is based on two adults sharing. For reservations call British Airways Holidays on 0870 2421276 or visit www.ba.com/holidays

MIAMI . . .
The Golden Girls
Miami Vice Sunshine: lots of it
Very big hair
Carlos and Rosa de La Cruz
Miami Beach
Alligators in the Everglades

v LONDON
Catherine Tate’s filthy gran
The Bill Light drizzle: lots of it
Lanky Hoxton mullets
Charles Saatchi South Bank
That whale in the Thames last year

Damien Hirst: the Murderme collection

From The Times

November 25, 2006

Rachel Campbell-Johnston at the Serpentine Gallery

Damien Hirst never does anything by halves — unless he is slicing dead animals, of course. So you can be sure that his private collection of art, part of which is on public show for the first time with the gruesome title of Murderme, is going to be pretty full on.

It hits you in the face like the Andy Warhol car smash that hangs about like some doorman to greet you: a red-misted vision of mass-produced death. Everything in Kensington Gardens is certainly not lovely. But it definitely has guts.

Hirst’s work always makes headlines. A couple of weeks ago controversy raged over whether one of his paintings was a piece of plagiarism. His shark in formaldehyde, that iconic cruiser of the conceptual scene, is being replaced (it was beginning to look more like some battered stuffed-toy) in an operation involving rubberised jumpsuits and tanks full of pickling fluid.

But now the Serpentine focuses not on Hirst’s own work but that of the artists whom he admires. These are pieces that he plans to install in his stately home: Toddington Manor in Gloucestershire. There visitors will be able to admire his collection in its entirety. Is this a case of a poacher turned gamekeeper? Has the artist turned patron? And are we witnessing the birth of an heir to Charles Saatchi? Hirst insists that he has always been a collector. “You just amass stuff while you are alive. It’s like stuff washed up on a beach somewhere, and that somewhere is you.”

If Hirst-land is a place, it’s a hotbed of revolutionary fervour. It’s a banana republic from which this Goldsmiths-trained generalissimo plotted the coup that took over the British art world. His landmark Freeze exhibition established the Brit-art junta in 1988.

This is an artist, it seems, who has always had the sharp eye and brave judgment of the judicious collector. As the curator of Freeze, he dictated who was in and who was out. He followed this with further curated shows: Modern Medicine and Gambler, both in 1990, and, in 1994, Some Went Mad, Some Ran Away. Hirst helps to shape an aesthetic through his choices. And suddenly Mr Saatchi seems more like some proselytising apostle. Recognising a saviour who could salvage a dreary art scene, he backed Hirst’s Brit-art movement and lent it financial credibility by putting up the cash.

Now Hirst, whose fortune is estimated at £35 million to £100 million, can put his money where his mouth is. He can afford to fork out $3.5 million (£1.8 million) for a small Warhol screenprint. And so he does. No doubt it will prove a sound investment. But it also typifies the commercially driven ethos of the “movement” he made so fashionable.

The Brit-pack is the bedrock of a collection that began on the “swapsies” principle. Here are the sorts of pieces that made Sarah Lucas, Angus Fairhurst, Tracey Emin or Gavin Turk famous: a photo of a chicken strapped on to a girl’s knickers, a naked man cradled by a monkey suit, a filthy sleeping bag in which a tramp sleeps.

Hirst has moved forwards, backwards and outwards from there. Breaking his rule of “never buy anything that costs more than your own work”, he invested in a small painting by his artistic godparent, Francis Bacon. It cost £12 million. He also bought pieces by Richard Prince and Jeff Koons, although he doesn’t have a Bruce Nauman, which he would love, or a Prince Charles. “Maybe we could trade,” he suggests.

This is not one of those dull, fill-in-the-gaps-style collections. It is brashly idiosyncratic. It likes one-liners and dramatic narratives. It revels in sex and death. Works are given guts in its context. It has an energy and passion that keeps it fresh.

On show from today (020-7298 1528)

Art of collecting

Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) was an avid collector of artists, such as Cezanne and Matisse, and of objects that had influenced his work. He was also a prolific collector of African art

The Impressionists including Vincent Van Gogh (1853-1890) and Claude Monet (1840-1926), were heavily influenced by the bold colours and lines of Japanese prints

Sir John Soane, the British arcahitect, (1753-1837) amassed a wide collection before his death in 1837. It ranged from classical busts and columns to furniture, and included work by Turner and Hogarth

Peter Paul Rubens the Flemish painter (1577-1640) was a prolific collector of other people’s paintings, particularly the Venetian painter Titian