THE WORST OF 2004

THE BIZARRE, THE DECADENT AND EXPENSIVE ART

THE WORLD’S MOST OFFENSIVE ART AT ONE OF THE WORLD’S MOST PRESTIGIOUS GALLERIES!!

THE DECADENCE OF MODERN ART IN ENGLAND

Photo, left: The Age of Reason by Nina Saunders (1995)

Mann: "We've had to work around Knott's clocks and fireplaces, and most of the inventive work has been to give our client what he wants as invisibly as possible."

The published, more or less reliable facts about Charles Nathan Saatchi are as follows. He was born in Baghdad in 1943, the son of a successful Jewish textile merchant. When he was four years old he came to Britain with his parents; he has lived in London almost ever since. His brother Maurice was born in the suburbs of Baghdad in 1946. They left Iraq in an exodus of 120,000 people at a time of increasing persecution of the country's ancient Jewish population. While the move to Britain was not easy, their parents managed to once again build a prosperous business, and the family lived in a large house in Highgate, north London. At school Charles did poorly; he didn't go into higher education and appears to have more or less drifted into the advertising industry, his real enthusiasms at the time including cars and poker. Saatchi was a gifted copywriter and worked with some now famous names - including the film director Alan Parker and the producer David Puttnam - at a time when advertising was becoming more proud and self-conscious in the pop art climate of the 1960s. Puttnam and Parker thought him a good enough writer to encourage him to follow them into the film business, and he did try to write screenplays for Puttnam; one scenario, reportedly developed into a Parker script, was filmed as SWALK. This 1971 film is also known as Melody, under which title Halliwell's film guide describes it as a "tough-sentimental teenage comedy-drama of little interest to adults". But wait. We have barely got into the 1970s and the plot starts to thicken. When I read about Charles's almost-happened film career in The Brothers, Ivan Fallon's 1988 business history of Saatchi & Saatchi, I was fascinated. It raised the possibility of another Charles Saatchi altogether, the life that might have been - and as it has entered the Saatchi mythology, it does seem to have been a possibility. I asked Parker how he remembers it. Very differently from the received version, it turns out. In 1968-9," Parker said, "Charles and David Puttnam had aspirations of going into the film industry. Charles and Puttnam took me to lunch at a Greek restaurant in Charlotte Street and told me their notion of getting involved with film and persuaded me to write a script. Charles was going to write one as well.

Photos, right: Some Comfort Gained From The Acceptance Of The Inherent Lies In Everything by Damien Hirst (1995)Ron Mueck's Angel sits high in the arched window on the left of the new gallery. Photo, left, below: (In foreground) Woman Reading Possession Order by Tom Hunter (1998)

I duly wrote my screenplay and Charles wrote his. Puttnam and Charles eventually went to the US to sell the scripts. My script was picked up; Charles's wasn't. Hence Charles was instantly disenchanted with the film business and announced that he would start an advertising agency with his brother. "The rest is history. Charles did not write the 'scenario' for my script. He had no involvement with it. He might have had some involvement financially in the film due to his relationship with Puttnam, but by the time it got made, he had long since lost interest in any notion of being in the film industry." Once again, the Saatchi story turns out to be slippery.

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