Mr. Saatchi has never played by the rules; he invented his own, and thus changed collecting forever. He must be happy with the result because he’s done it for decades, and the entire contemporary art world owes him a lot for the awareness he’s created, the artists whose works he’s shown and promoted, and the public excitement and enthusiasm he’s created. I don’t think we’ll ever see another like him, not only because he was visionary but also because the market has changed.
Studying The History of the Saatchi Gallery made me wonder: Is it the experience of collecting that counts or is it the physical possession of powerful art? Is it fulfilling to have once owned masterpieces, or does it count only when “death do us part”?
I need it both ways, meaning that I need the excitement of owning work that can be published and shown, but I’m not willing to part with it all, even at exorbitant prices. When I come home I want to be surrounded by a collection that represents my personal history with art, works that were important to my life experience. Given the chance to be a Saatchi I’d like to think I would have kept much of his great stuff and not have succumbed to the temptation to always cash in and seek out the newest new thing.
There was a time when chasing the art world’s next sensation was a great strategy, and Charles Saatchi was the master pioneer of the “show and sell” technique. Several private contemporary art foundations followed in his footsteps, including Dakis Joannou’s Deste Foundation in Athens, François Pinault’s Palazzo Grassi and Punta della Dogana in Venice, the Rubell Family Collection in Miami and Peter Brant’s Brant Foundation in Greenwich, Conn. Mr. Saatchi invented the model over 25 years ago and has been the leader in finding tomorrow’s art market stars and cashing in on them, but those days are mostly over, because the days of “easy pickings” and low-hanging fruit are gone for good. Today, the mission of seeking out the hottest new thing has become painfully tedious, because really going forward in art often requires reaching backward: too often the old is better than the new. Flipping through Mr. Saatchi’s book, a memorial to masterpieces come and gone, I can’t help but feel that today I’d rather see a major Saatchi Collection retrospective than anything he’s liable to cook up next.
editorial@observer.com
