The prolific art collector and gallerist Charles Saatchi has taken Phaidon Press to court in the U.K., claiming that his contract with the company amounts to a “restraint of trade” because it bans him from working with other publishers on different projects. Read More
Charles Saatchi is the most influential collector of the past 25 years, and one of the most controversial. Notorious for never appearing at his own openings and for not granting interviews, the British former advertising magnate remains a mysterious figure who wields his influence through his Saatchi Gallery shows and the subsequent sale of the Read More
Marilyn Manson takes on the role of fine artist, a Velazquez parades as basement junk, and Louis Vuitton purses and porn are reconfigured into fine art with varying results. This week in art news: Come as you’re not!
1. Ukranian Billionaire Selects Art-Prize Nominees
Victor Punchuk’s PinchukArtCentre announced the nominees for his Read More
Clichés die hard and slow, mainly because most people simplify things in order to process them. When it comes to art collecting, people love to talk up the storied collectors of old to give hope to new art buyers. Consider the oft-told tale of Herb and Dorothy Vogel, a retired postal clerk and an ex-librarian Read More
The British sculptor Marc Quinn, whose work is on view at the Mary Boone Gallery, is an artist with a résumé guaranteed to command both attention and revulsion. In 1991, he caused a sensation in London with a portrait sculpture of his own head called Self . It was one of a series of works Read More
As expected, a Federal judge has rejected Mayor Rudolph Giuliani’s attempt to withhold funds from the Brooklyn Museum of Art for exhibiting the odious Sensation exhibition. Once again, First Amendment fundamentalist Floyd Abrams has made the world a safer place for the market in the foulest varieties of obscene expression, and he was duly rewarded Read More
Well, I’ve been over to Brooklyn to see the Sensation show and–guess what?–it’s a lousy exhibition. It’s an appallingly witless and stupid exhibition. But that’s what it was expected to be, wasn’t it? If it wasn’t guaranteed to be stupidly offensive, it wouldn’t be getting all this attention, would it? If it wasn’t guaranteed to Read More
Is adman turned art-gallery kingmaker Charles Saatchi regretting the fact that in the early 90′s he dumped an assortment of paintings by David Salle–as well as his Schnabels, Clementes and so on?
Mr. Saatchi, who was once on a short list of collectors given first crack at Mr. Salle’s work, has recently purchased seven Salle Read More
