Saatchi Gallery

Sightlines

The Saatchi gallery enabled various sight lines within the museum due to the interesting architecture of the building interior and due to the spacious hangings of the art pieces on the walls and on the floor. There were many rooms and many floors in a relatively small building, but I wasn't overwhelmed or discouraged from perusing from room to room because each one was so unique and offered something different. One really good example of utilizing the architecture of the building is the installation piece by Ximena Garrido-Lecca. This piece of installation art was an enormous reproduction of a burial wall as it exists from her native country of Peru.

It took up the entire wall in the gallery and while that in itself was impressive, once you got to the second floor, there was a balcony where you could stand, thrust out into that very same gallery, and have a better view of the top half of the installation piece. The balcony enabled a different sight line from a higher vantage point. I don't think I've seen this type of multiple-sight line viewing of a piece of art at a museum before. This made the Saatchi Gallery stand out as unique. 

Another aspect to the Saatchi Gallery that I appreciated was that I never felt overwhelmed in a room, despite the various pieces hanging on the wall or hanging from the ceiling. The white walls created a neutral palette and the spacing between the pieces of artwork allowed you to look at each piece with patience and calm. 

Overall, the utter lack of interruption allowed for more contemplation...which leads me to the next question.

 

Didactics

As a non-art major, as someone who enjoys the aesthetic aspect of artwork and needs a little bit of help in order to contextualize artwork...I would say that the text at the Saatchi Gallery is NOT adequate! I know that it is not the Saatchi's policy to hand feed art to people, but when you're going to put on display artwork that may be, pardon my French, like a brainfuck, to some people, it would be nice to give it a bit of context instead of no context at all! I found the tour guide to be invaluable with the information that she provided regarding the artist behind the piece and the context in which the piece was constructed. I don't need, nor am I asking, to be hand fed the meaning of a painting or sculpture, but I was thoroughly annoyed at how utterly blank I felt sometimes looking at certain pieces in the gallery. I think the question that came up the most often in my head was, "What is this? What am I supposed to take away from this?"

I know that art is subjective and there's not one right answer, but the artist must have had a reason for constructing such a piece just so or something that he/she was trying to create or question.  Information that I would have appreciated would have been very clearly:

• Name of art piece
• Artist name
• Artist DOB and death, if applicable
• Country of origin
• Interests (as in topics or subjects the artist favors), if applicable

Collection

I would definitely say that the Saatchi is more adventurous than the previous museums I've been to and so much so, that I would question if they are pushing the envelope and saying "We're displaying this and therefore it is art," or if they're being all tongue in cheek about it and saying "We're displaying this, declaring it art, and we want to push your conceptions of what is art because in reality, this is crap."

The Saatchi Gallery made me question what makes art art. Or maybe, what makes a person's artwork arty enough that it can be displayed in a gallery and sold for money? 

I'm so used to appreciating the classic definition of art and what it means to be an artiste, that I have a really difficult time seeing abstract, modern art as being art. I know that that is my personal bias, weakness, etc. but because of this I felt that some of the pieces at the Saatchi were not worthy of being displayed at a gallery e.g. the spam posters. Maybe the fact that the Saatchi Gallery is willing to step outside of the box and not be bound by traditional (archaic?) definitions of art is what makes it such a daring and unique gallery! That in itself could be the very strength of the gallery. There are plenty of galleries and museums displaying the traditional sorts of art that are considered art, and maybe even masterpieces. For that reason alone, the Saatchi should be appreciated for its eclectic and eccentric collection.