Supercollector: A Critique of Charles Saatchi - Softcover

Hatton, Rita; Walker, John A.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1841660248 ISBN 13: 9781841660240

Publisher: Ellipsis London Pr Ltd, 2000

Synopsis

A detailed examination of the advertising mogul and art collector Charles Saatchi, a man who is estimated to spend 2 million a year buying contemporary art, displaying it in his own gallery in north London and, famously, at the 'Sensation' exhibition which opened at the Royal Academy before touring to Berlin and the Brooklyn Museum, an event that provoked an extraordinary clash between art and politics. Regarded by many as a modern Medici, Saatchi exercises tremendous power in the international contemporary art market. He can make and break artists' reputations, and he has had the power to define the character and direction of recent British art. Surprisingly, this is the first book to look at Charles Saatchi as art collector. While it quotes a range of opinions, the book is primarily a critique written from a socialist standpoint, applying ideas derived from a number of sociologists including Marx, Moulin and Veblen.

About this title

About the Author:

Rita Hatton is an art historian, a recent graduate from Middlesex University where she wrote a dissertation on the relationship between art and advertising. John A Walker is Reader in Art and Design History at Middlesex University and the author of a dozen books on contemporary art and mass media.

Review:

A fresh look at the shadowy world of private patronage as it operates today. -- Socialist Appeal, Steve Jones, May 2000

Beautifully designed and handily pocket-sized, so you can whip it out to impress attractive strangers at a gallery. -- The Guardian, 29 January 2000

Small and malignant...slots into the pocket as snugly as a gunslinger's Bible, or, appropriately, a packet of cigarettes. -- The Times Literary Supplement, Keith Miller, 9 June 2000

About this edition

• Publisher: Ellipsis London Pr Ltd
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 1841660248
• ISBN 13: 9781841660240
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 260