Saatchi collects celebrity scandal

Maybe Charles Saatchi should consider spending a little more time on the ad business, as it certainly seems a more noble pursuit than what he’s currently doing in the art world. According to a BBC report yesterday, the adman-cum-art-collector has purchased a painting of the place in Hollywood where Hugh Grant was arrested in 1995 for picking up a prostitute. But that’s not all. Saatchi earlier bought a work from the same artist—of the place where Winona Ryder was picked up for shoplifting a few years back. As one might expect, this genre of what could be called “scandal art” is being positioned as some sort of commentary about modern society. The artist, Dwayne Moser, says, “I am interested in turning the site of an off-screen event in a film star’s life into a backdrop—thus suggesting the very public nature of their ‘private’ lives.” And selling them for a tidy sum, we might add.

—Posted by Catharine P. Taylor

June 29, 2005 | Permalink