Catching Up With Charles SAATCHI

Patricia Ellis, Flash Art

The last time I saw Charles Saatchi he was sitting in a window eating lunch, some kind of salady thing, some figs, and an entire cucumber. "That's not mine", he gestured, "it's for the Sarah Lucas." I've worked with him for 8 years, and I can still never tell for sure when he's joking. People always ask me what he's like, as if he could be pegged. Well... he's the kind of guy who brown bags it to work, and brings in bits of art from his refrigerator. He likes hip hop videos, has a penchant for slippers, and keeps a Marc Quinn rubber body cast suspended in his toilet. He never stands still for more than a minute, takes a personal interest in absolutely everything, and has a vague air of perplexity about him, a sort of jet lag frustration that reality just can't keep up with mental speed. He's instantaneously likeable: warm, down to earth, charming, a bit shy, and wickedly funny. Not in a laugh out loud kind of way, but understated and clever. You have to think for a moment then smile.

There's very little that isn't common knowledge about the Saatchi legacy. The advertising guru turned collector in the 80s, his championing of Brit Art from the early 90s to the present, keen eye and reputation for reinvention and trend-setting, and widening interest in the international market; the controversy that surrounds him like a festive entourage. It's hard to reconcile the man with the myth. Partly because in person he bears little resemblance to his media portrayal, and from when seen from up close his tremendous accomplishments are so evidently the result of excruciatingly hard work rather than a 'golden touch'. But mostly it's because he exudes this ballistic energy that's exclusively and intensively targeted on what's next. And what's next is pretty incredible.

Charles Saatchi bought his first piece (a Sol Le Witt drawing) when he was a young man, developed his interest in the 70s, and bought artists such as Donald Judd, Bruce Nauman, and Richard Serra to exhibit in his north London warehouse gallery in the 80s. In the early 90s, the "punk minimalism" of artists such as Damien Hirst, Sarah Lucas, and the Chapman brothers captured his imagination, culminating in the 1997 Sensation exhibition. Ten years on, the Saatchi Collection now encompasses more than 2000 artworks, spanning from Warhol's pop to Rego's romanticism, YBA irreverence, German intellectualism, to works from every corner of the globe: Andro Wekua, Thomas Zipp, Isa Genzken, Anselm Reyle, Terence Koh, Martina Steckholzer and Kirstine Roepstorff just to name a few. His taste defies classification, constantly shifting between cross-reference and contradiction, unpredictable, and always on the cutting-edge.

Saatchi's populist approach has always been one of the most intriguing things about him. He's been deemed a super-collector, patron, dealer, and promoter, but none of these really quite describe what it is that he does. Labels such as 'critic' or 'curator' are always conspicuously lacking in Saatchi-oriented discussion; but constructing new relationships to art, articulating ideas, instigating dialogue, creating context, developing new ways of working, and pushing the boundaries of definition and understanding are exactly the things that Charles does best. Privately funded, with total freedom of self-direction, and very few limitations, Saatchi is something of a new breed. Re-characterising what the role of a collector can be, his operations are quite simply fluid.

Working on a platform where traditional rules just don't apply, Saatchi's uniquely visionary approach has instigated real change and invigoration in all aspects of how art is perceived in the UK - from investment, gallery structure, studio production, to public awareness. Over the past few years his collection has grown past its YBA notoriety, coming into its own with block buster shows more radical and extravagant than most public museums can muster. Retrospectives of Damien Hirst and the Chapman Brothers brought in record crowds, followed up with Triumph of Painting, a mammoth reconsideration of the medium today. In its 4 part entirety, half already seen, it will showcase over 400 canvases, including heavy hitter work by the likes of Luc Tuymans, Marlene Dumas, Peter Doig, and Martin Kippenberger and superstars such as Dirk Skreber, Kai Althoff, and Thomas Scheibitz, making even the most cantankerous critics gush. Though the gallery has been closed for the past year, Saatchi's excelled himself in activity. Behind closed doors, countless younger artists are being picked up at lightening speed from international quarters. UK picks include: Pablo Bronstein, Olivia Plender, Alastair MacKinven, Idris Khan and Ged Quinn. It's fair to say that Saatchi's officially gone global. The only thing bigger is virtual.

Logging onto www.saatchigallery.com is like entering a megalopolis. Expanding into a resource centre unlike anything else online, Saatchi's digital site is a one stop art fix that will keep you occupied for days. Along side the usual gallery info, virtual tour, Charles Saatchi Q&A, events schedule, and press archive, there's over 600 images from the collection, individual artist's pages with essays, interviews, and links to galleries, museums and online publications. Not limited to only the Saatchi Gallery, the site propagates the Saatchi ethos: encouraging active participation en masse. Readers can submit their own essays and reviews, list exhibitions and events, and join online discussions through message forums and live chat rooms. It's also got one of the most gossipy blog sites going (with several who's whos contributing under pseudonyms), a complete regularly updated London gallery guide, and an extensive meeting board to connect with artists from around the globe. There's even a kiddie's studio. Most interesting of all though, is the Your Gallery pages offering gratis online space for artists from around the world to upload images and CVs and sell their work commission free. Now boasting over 10,000 artists, with thousands of pounds worth of sales for artists internationally, Your Gallery introduces artists to collectors on an unprecedented level. Bypassing the traditional gallery system, it's a sure fire way for artists to get their work seen by 'The Man' himself and promote their work to industry insiders -- and for buyers to score a bargain. In a collaborative project with the Guardian, a short listed selection has been drawn up by invited critics and curators, and through public vote, 30 new artists will be included in an exhibition early next year, which will be held at the Guardian's own new gallery.

Now in its 21st year, the Saatchi Gallery is undergoing another massive expansion. Having moved from their first location, a converted paint factory in St. John's Wood, to the palatial digs of Westminster's County Hall in 2003, they're set to move again, reopening next summer at the Duke of York's HQ building in Chelsea. It's a monster of a space: 50000 sq. ft. spread over three floors with 15 individual galleries, all super-slick and ultra-modern. A full-fledged museum reflecting a collection that over 30 years has matured with flourish. It's more than apt that the new gallery is rumoured to be opening with a show titled Abstract America, including top tips such as Amy Silman, Andy Collins, and Eric Freeman. America for Saatchi has always been topical; it's the starting point for his career as a collector, and a theme he's visited in previous exhibitions. It's also the focus of his next explosive venture.

In their first collaboration since Sensation in 1997, Charles Saatchi teams up with Norman Rosenthal to present USA Today at The Royal Academy in October, set to open one week before the Frieze Art Fair. Less about geography than a cosmopolitan framework from which to sample and mix an immensely diverse range of great work, USA Today features over 40 artists from across the pond, many who have not yet shown in the UK. USA Today offers a considered survey of America's best and brightest, with familiar names such as Wangechi Mutu, Dana Schutz, Josephine Meckseper, and Banks Violette headlining the bill. Unorthodox, naughty, and thoroughly fun, USA Today presents a refreshingly quirky take on American culture, with its zany politics, flashy commericialism, and home-spun mythologies. Within this veneer of heartland exoticism, the artists in USA Today contrive a wry and complex subtext, hyper aware of artistic strategy and lineage; pushing the boundaries of making becomes sharply metaphoric of frontier ethic.

Painting plays a key role throughout the exhibition, drawing upon the heritage of Abstract Expressionism, Minimalism and Pop as a backdrop against which the action plays. Kelley Walker's Black Star Press gives a sly nod to Warhol's race riots as images of civil unrest smeared with chocolate are digitised and printed on canvas. Mark Grotjahn's mesmerising graphic compositions and Daniel Hesidence's lush gestural surfaces affirm the traditions of intimate negotiation and spiritual sublimity. Kristin Baker's auto-racing inspired abstractions and Barnaby Furnas's colourful bloodbaths fuse art and spectacle. And Gerald Davis's beautifully rendered paintings make the most of teenage embarrassment, combining the innocence of cartoon illustration with the spatial subtlety of Ad Reinhardt.

There's no shortage of sculpture, photography, installation, and video, however. Pieces such as Jules de Balincourt's Personal Survival Doom Buggy and Huma Bhabha's shrouded and prostrate Untitled set the stage for current discord and surreal solution, their political polarities rendered with equally alien estrangement. Lara Schnitger's crafty fabric predators, Jon Pylypchuk's pathetic varmints, and Ryan Trecartin's suburban mutations flesh out an asocial sympathy. Luis Gispert's 'tribal' portraits and Florian Maier-Aichen's toxic landscapes readily blur reality and fiction, while Matthew Day Jackson's drawings reinvent American history with an apologist's humour, Rodney McMillian's Supreme Court sags with poetic irony, and Marc Handelman's Luminist inspired paintings readily subvert the power of propaganda. Drawing from the parodic and poignant, USA Today mirrors current zeitgeist, encapsulating the revolutionary rumblings of a global future.

It's a coincidence that the very first time I met Charles Saatchi was at his Young Americans show in 1998 (sitting at his desk, wearing slippers, eating vitamins, and enthusing about the new movie Starship Troopers). Young artists like John Currin, Elizabeth Peyton, Laura Owens, and Tom Friedman were just a whisper of artworld interest, and his gallery was chalk full of them. Saatchi was then, as he is now, always one step ahead. In all the years I've known him, I've never asked Charles about the secret of his success. I suspect that he would say that there's nobody alive who likes looking at art more than he does. It's a thought that makes me smile.

Patricia Ellis is a writer based in London.