London: The New Saatchi Gallery - The Revolution Continues

THE REVOLUTION CONTINUES: NEW CHINESE ART
Saatchi Gallery
Duke of York's HQ, King's Road, Chelsea, London
until Jan 18 2009
FREE

At last the much-anticipated new gallery in Chelsea has opened, in the vastness of the old regimental barracks on the Kings Road, and at vast expense. Critics, while loving the immense spaces, have been divided on the quality of this inaugural exhibition, which features most of China's contemporary superstars, with the notable exception of Ai Weiwei.

The Guardian's Adrian Searle (Saatchi gallery: A study in blandness, October 7 2008) is withering:
The former Duke of York's HQ has been transformed into a study in blandness. If not for the art, we might be at a King's Road corporate wellness retreat...
Too much here looks secondary, or like a tiresome kind of entertainment. There are few signs of language being stretched and one has the feeling that many works have been manufactured with a market in mind...
On the whole the sculpture is better than the painting. It is almost all figurative, sometimes aiming for abject hilarity, sometimes for mordant gravity. But this time, optimism and Saatchi's unquenchable enthusiasm might not be enough.

Although everyone seemed to make an exception for Sun Yuan and Peng Yu's extraordinary Old Persons Home, left, Charlotte Higgins (Guardian Blog) was also unimpressed by most of the art:
The paint was still drying and the pale-wood floors still pristine this morning as the press drifted around the inaugural exhibition of Chinese art.
And therein lies the problem. It just is a truly grim show.
There is one mildly amusing piece - Sun Yuan and Peng Yu's room full of life-like sculptures of very elderly men in wheelchairs, each one looking something like (although hard to pin down to) a world leader in his dotage. These uniformed fellows in their medals, heads lolling on shoulders, white hair unkempt, reminded one of the broken Saddam, or of Yasser Arafat in his last days, or of what Bill Clinton might end up like in his twilight. The wheelchairs moved around of their own accord, such that the old blokes with their blankets on their knees bumped into each other from time to time.
Well, that was the highlight. Too much of the work here was on one note, or had one shouty visual trick up its sleeve. As often in the company of the work of Charles Saatchi, or at least the stuff that he has collected recently, I found myself being reminded that he is an ad-man. Visual puns are his bread-and-butter. That's why he likes this kind of thing: the miniature city (badly) constructed out of dog chews; the 'history-painting' containing Mao sitting in the back row at a McCarthy hearing; lord help us, the giant turd containing miniature toy soldiers. Hectoring art with little to say.

It was not all bad - Richard Dorment (The Telegraph) was more approving, see the video link below, which includes footage of Old Persons Home.



Considering it's free, and there is a very promising line-up of shows to come, it would appear that London is just being characteristically bitchy about the flamboyant Charles Saatchi. LF disagrees with the naysayers - we think that more far-sighted zillionaires should follow his lead and fund great public galleries. If you don't like all the art on show, at least it's there to experience first-had, so get yourself along and decide for yourself.