Saatchi's scathing portrait of the art world: 'Vulgar, Eurotrashy, masturbatory'

[xchrom]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2011/dec/02/charles-saatchi-art-world-attack


Charles Saatchi has launched an incendiary attack on the buyers and dealers who populate the art world. Photograph: James King for the Observer

Charles Saatchi, the most important British art collector of his generation, has launched an incendiary attack on the buyers, dealers and curators who populate the contemporary art world and concluded that many of them have little feeling for art and cannot tell a good artist from a bad one.

Writing in today's Guardian, Saatchi paints a scathing picture of the contemporary art world and says that being a buyer these days "is comprehensively and indisputably vulgar".

He says: "It is the sport of the Eurotrashy, hedgefundy, Hamptonites; of trendy oligarchs and oiligarchs; and of art dealers with masturbatory levels of self-regard." Saatchi described the Venice Biennale, scene of the world's biggest contemporary art jamboree, as a place where these people circulate "in a giddy round of glamour-filled socialising, from one swanky party to another".

"Do any of these people actually enjoy looking at art?" asks Saatchi. "Do they simply enjoy having easily recognised big-brand-name pictures, bought ostentatiously in auction rooms at eye-catching prices, to decorate their several homes, floating and otherwise, in an instant demonstration of drop-dead coolth and wealth? Their pleasure is to be found in having their lovely friends measuring the weight of their baubles, and being awestruck."



*** i'm a huge fan of charles saatchi and the fact that he is married to nigella lawson just proves his good taste.

[Warren Stupidity]

1. I'm just wondering when it was any different?

Was it better when it was more aristocratic old money funding the arts?

[madrchsod]

4. i was thinking the same thing but look at what they bought.

the test that we probably will never know is what works of today will survive the test of time. after all impressionism was a new movement who had it`s critics but today.....

[Warren Stupidity]

6. so 'they' buy whatever the art world equivalent of the fashionitas

tell them to buy. This buying and selling is and always has been since civilization evolved artists from artisans what sustains 'artist' as a career. While connected to the question of 'what is art' and why many of us react to what we see with "but look at what they bought", - if you can't sell your stuff it is hard to keep making it, and if it doesn't get seen (or heard) perhaps it doesn't even exist as art. 'what is art' is always changing, and what artists are doing at 'the edge' right now is rarely easy to accept. What am I saying? This 'eurotrashy' art world isn't all bad - it has expanded the funding base, there are more people being artists now because there is more money so more people can actually make a living. We don't have to like what they are doing, and perhaps none of it will survive the test of time, but I doubt that. Some great art is being produced right now, along with a lot of crap.

[TalkingDog]

8. It was probably somewhat different during the days of patronage

Talent recognizes talent. So when a well-respected artist was given patronage by a king or duke, it wasn't just the artist. It was his entire studio; including all his apprentices and technicians.

The people who did well in those studios went on to find patrons of their own so they could start studios.

Meanwhile the artists set the tone for the quality of the work produced. They could steer patrons away from shoddy work or uneven artists.

Now the market is wide open and free-form and anyone who wants to can declare themselves and expert. Ahhh... Post-Modernism. Being an elite anything, much less an artist, is as you know grounds for instant dismissal.

HOW DARE YOU SAY I DON'T UNDERSTAND QUALITY WORK, TALENT, OR THE CREATIVE PROCESS? WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE? You can hear some Republican saying that, right?

Think of it in terms of the deregulation of the markets. Once anything is permissible, unethical and fraudulent behavior abounds.

[Warren Stupidity]

11. er well actually no

The kings, dukes, etc. and the last round of gilded age rich promoted absolute crap along with a few gems. I have no idea what your stuiod patronage theory is about, but it is the same process that goes on today. Major artists - those making lots of money - employ assistants - their 'studio' and those assistants learn the business and go on to start careers of their own using the connections they made. Same as it ever was, bigger world of patrons to choose from.

The artists set the tone - or not. The people with money and their entourage of 'critics' and 'experts' have always set the tone, and generally done a bad job of it, filling museums and mansions with derivative schlock for centuries. The artists have to eat. To the extent that the arts have 'advanced' they have done so despite the best efforts of critics and experts and the moneyed class.

The market is only 'wide open' to the extent that there are more filthy rich people buying art than there were 50 years ago or 100 years ago. I don't think it is either republican or democratic to buy art - and to the extent that a small closed world that in the post war era consisted of New York, Paris, London, a handful of critics who dictated who was in and who was out, and a very small set of museums and rich people buying this stuff, has been vastly broadened with new cities becoming art centers, more critics, more galleries, more voices championing more artists - this 'deregulation' you are sneering at is a good thing, if you are an artist, and I say the more artists there are making a living making art, even if I don't like what they are doing, the better.

I have no idea what constitutes fraudulent behavior with respect to art other than actual fraud: for example selling a painting purported to be by one person when in fact it is by another. Certainly promoting art that you don't like is not fraud, it is merely a difference of opinion.

[TalkingDog]

12. A bigger world = less influence by people with actual knowledge/ability.

So, my point is still very valid. And while you may not recognize it, you are, to some degree, supporting my argument.

While I don't disagree that patrons promoted crap, that was not the point I was trying to make in the first place.

If power and influence are concentrated in the hands of a few (say kings or the Royal Academy) and a master artist is employed by him (say... Leonardo), then Leonardo is going to influence decisions of "taste" (read accomplished art by master artists) for the people he works for. It wouldn't be in his best interest to do otherwise.

Leonardo also wouldn't promote artists in his employ who undercut his values for the same reason.

That type of influence is a top down phenomenon. Kings (in reality Leonardo or the Royal Academy) influence Dukes, Dukes influence the people on the next rung down, etc. So the influence of particular artists or their patrons made for a very cohesive idea of what constituted "good".

As the patronage system broke down with the rise of the bourgeoisie (in the medieval sense, not the current commonly held usage)artists began to sell their work to a broader audience, and the monolithic idea of a "good" art changed.

Enter critics. (and please understand I'm compressing a couple of centuries of social and economic change into one sentence) So, critics have not been around "forever". For that, we can look back to the Renaissance. His name was Giorgio Vasari. While he didn't give patronage in the fashion of Greenberg, as an authority, he set the terms of what constituted good art for his time with "Lives of the Most Eminent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects"

Criticism developed as it's own field and to a great degree supplanted the influence of the artist in the determination of what constitutes "good". Then, as time went on, what was "good" became what is profitable and/or collectable and/or "worth" investing in. Case in point: Painter of Light Thomas Kincaide

So, I strongly disagree that the democratization of art is a good thing. Mostly because of the dire lack of discussion about or understanding of context, content or history. (blame the budget cuts that kill art educations programs and blame the currently fashionable and entirely laughable idea that "everyone is an artist", to which I invariably reply: Yes, but are they good artist?) It's the same phenomenon that you see on FreeRepublic or Fox news as they mangle the Constitution or history or even current political events. They hold forth at great length without a deeper understanding of the subject. Their opinion is "truth". And that, in their world, is all that is required to be an expert. So,they either like it or they don't. It becomes "truthy" and decimates the core reasons behind the artists creation of the piece, which may be trying to convey a political or aesthetic point.

When all "art" becomes elevated to the same level you end up with eye-candy, a trifle with no real substance or message. You remove the reservoir of meaning that is intended to communicate, not only with current patrons (of all types) but with future generations.

It diminishes the importance of work that defines and describes the culture of our time.

My example of a Republican balking at some "elite" telling him what constitutes good art was made in jest. But it does reflect the knee jerk reaction many people have to an educated, knowledgeable person suggesting that even is such a thing as "good" art.

[Warren Stupidity]

13. so you would prefer a dictatorship of the critics?

series?

How weird. As I said, this broadening is great if you are an artist. Of course you still have to deal with rich assholes and pompous critics, but now there are so many more to choose from.

Oh and Kincaide has nothing at all to do with the subject of the OP. Oiligarchs are not stuffing yachts with that crap. They are stuffing yachts with works most people would find 'difficult'.

[Chan790]

20. As an observer and lover of art...

this subthread between you and talkingdog is one of the most interesting and well-argued debates on art I've read or seen in a long time.

I'm not sure who is right, but I'm impressed. My one observation though is that the so-called experts that Saatchi is deriding...and I've met these sorts of fools...are not capable of having this debate, they have too little connection or love for the art, too little feeling or understanding of art to even possess an opinion.

They're collectors trying to "collect" art like it were a contest, trying to outdo each other...a gaggle of offensive morons...and that might be the problem in a nutshell.

[MedicalAdmin]

2. This is not so much about art

As it is an indictment of the 1% trust fund entitlement class. And Ioath those fuckers.

[madrchsod]

5. without the barrons of old we would not have the museums we have but...today

will todays 1% invest in america`s public good.....i doubt it.

[madrchsod]

3. very good article

i know art is in the eye of the beholder but when money is thrown into the equation we get what he`s talking about.

never heard of him but he`s on my favorite list of critics. as for nigella....yum!

[TalkingDog]

9. No, Art is not in the eye of the beholder. Beauty and worth, yes.

Art involves scientific theory and craft. So any form of skilled labor is an art: for example Medicine or Farming

Both require some working knowledge of science, even if in a rudimentary form. Both require being able to replicate a process by rote (craft).

The mastery of an art means that you can take the variables inherent in the process (for dr.s the vagaries of the human body and the changeability of viruses, chemical reactions, etc. for farmers the vagaries of the weather, soil chemistry, plant diseases) and finesse them as they arrive in the process to achieve consistent results.

Not replicate results, which would be science, but near consistent results.

Visual Artists do exactly the same things. So no. Art is not in the eye of the beholder.

[muriel_volestrangler]

17. Saatchi isn't a critic; he's a multi-millionaire collector who made his money in advertising

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Saatchi

Most famously running the campaign that helped elect Thatcher in 1979. I suspect a lot of people used to say these kinds of things about him, given his support for Damien Hirst, Tracey Emin and so on (for whom 'vulgar, Eurotrashy, masturbatory' is a pretty good description). His taste is not universally shared.

[Bluenorthwest]

7. Saatchi's got the eye for great art in many forms

I learned much from seeing shows of his collection, just the viewing was an education.

[xchrom]

10. and i think 'education' has a lot to do w/ what he's talking about here.

i've loved some of his shows.

[supernova]

14. I think Saatchi

is talking about everybody but the artists themselves: the gallery owners, the other collectors who don't seem to know what they want or why they want it outside of someone else telling them. "This piece is important. Don't ask why, just buy it."

Contrast that attitude with the couple in the documentary "Herb & Dorothy." Herb and Dorothy Vogel were, respectively, a civil servant and a librarian, yet over their lives they collected perhaps the most important body of modern and minimalist art. They did it because they liked it. They liked meeting the artists and spending time with them in their studios and asking them about their work. They developed guidelines about what to collect: They both had to love it, it had to fit in their tiny NYC apartment. I think the third thing was it had to not be too expensive (obviously).

http://movies.netflix.com/WiMovie/Herb_Dorothy/70117555?trkid=2361637

[xchrom]

19. i know that movie and i've seen a lot of photos of their collection

amazing stuff.

and i think you're on to something.

[saras]

15. He's hanging out in the wrong corner of the art world

This bunny is ten years old now - that's a long time in the art world. Where's the poodles?



Yes, it's a real rabbit. It's under black light, but that's what color it is.

http://www.ekac.org/transgenicindex.html">More interesting, but not that new, art

I wonder if you could take your own skin cells, modify them with the fluorescence gene, and re-inject them with a tattoo gun? There's a PhD in art for someone.

And, seriously, Obama jokes aside, I think there would really be a market for pink unicorns.

[yurbud]

16. another angle: the inflated value of pretentious crap is a way of laundering drug money

any time you look at a product and say, ''How could anyone pay so much for that?" or a business and say, ''How can they stay open with so few customers?'' there's probably something going on behind the scenes.

[pscot]

18. I never knew you could deep fry a snickers bar

until I saw Nigella do it on TV.

[westerebus]

21. Art reflects the times.

As we ascend the pay scale, the few with the most define themselves by their choices.