Monday, June 14, 2010

"Newspeak: British Art Now" Exhibition at the Saatchi Gallery


Barry Reigate's Real Special Very Painting


The Saatchi Gallery in London is one of the world’s premier art spaces, showcasing up and coming contemporary artists. Charles Saatchi, art collector and global advertising mogul, opened the gallery in 1985 in North London. Currently, the art house is located in Chelsea in the Duke of York's HQ building. Saatchi’s history features artists from different areas, including US minimalists, Young British Artists (YBA) and contemporary artists from the United States, Britain and China. Many artists who show at the gallery often use the publicity to jump start their careers. On June 2, the largest show since moving to the current location opened with many exciting but still mostly unknown artists from Britain.


Called “Newspeak: British Art Now,” the show predicts what future art in Britain will be. The term “newspeak” comes from George Orwell’s chilling novel 1984, in which the language gets simplified and smaller constantly in order to create a utopian, equal society. The exhibit takes the idea of newspeak and does the exact opposite: the artists are showing how visual language can multiply and be invented by them to “explore issues such as class, consumerism and the phenomenon of instant success culture, often with a distinctly British dry wit” (http://bit.ly/a9bJR6). Artists in the first set of Newspeak include Barry Reigate, Pablo Bronstein and many others.


The Saatchi Gallery strives to reach the largest audience possible, and in the first year of being open in the Chelsea location, over 1.2 million people came to see the progressive shows. The free admission and prime location also help draw the crowds.


If you find yourself in London this summer, be sure to visit the Saatchi Gallery for really exciting and fresh art. For more information on the gallery, please go to http://bit.ly/3OifW.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Wow, the trends in art really change from week to week. It seems that we are looking at the coming of yet another modernist trend if we were to believe what that picture represents. This art is fun, garish, fresh and a bit disconcerting. It takes traditional art and artistic endeavors and wraps it up in a hard candy shell that melts in your mind not your hand. I feel like I’m tripping on the profusion of primary colors and small camouflaged cartoon characters that that pop up on the canvas like a bad trip from LSD. Yet the busy, loud, visually cluster-phobic subject matter can bring a smile to a grumpy face and lift spirits from depression. That’s the magic of modern art . I’m not sure that I like this type of art in large doses. This art matches specific tastes that are honed in sophisticated modernists who collect art that’s a bit edgy and unique with a twist.