As an artist who doesn't go in for art shows, I mean I might exhibit (one day if I get my sh*t together) but the truth is I've never liked galleries all that much, worse still are the dreaded overblown, over-hyped, over-priced art fairs that trawl the globe each year. In the 70s you had hippies who'd follow the sun, circumventing the Earth in order to turn on, tune in and drop out at one mad, bad and usually free festival after another. In the 80s and 90s you've got your Euro trash, rich and self-indulgent trust fund brats who paraded around the planet, their noses packed to the hilt with cocaine, haute couture dripping from their shoulders and nouveau cuisine titbits dripping from the corners of their mouths. Now the globetrotter has grown up, they do one of two things. They either pollute the planet by flying to every godforsaken spot they can find where they sing patronising songs and help build mud huts in ecologically sensitive, war torn, poverty stricken countries. (Hey stop travelling and give all your money to charity, if you're not medically trained, a scientific expert, an engineer or ready to invest millions in a 3rd World economy, you're wasting everyone's time and money and air and water). The other choice is to follow the arts scene. Favoured by most of the idle rich, the ones who still don't feel guilty even if the capitalist state is collapsing and we're verging on a global revolution, and I use that word with its original intent. There is no such thing as, say, a digital revolution, revolutions are bloody and brutal and almost always end with chopping off a monarch's head or shooting a dictator or two (in order to replace them with yet another).
They could follow the fashion scene, but unless you're completely vacuous, Posh aka Victoria Beckham for example, you won't find your meaning of being off the rail, it's not in your purse/wallet, it's not branded, not even if the logo is made from real gold and diamonds for diamanté. No, shopping doesn't cut it. That is unless you happen to like splurging your vast fortune on art. Contemporary art is dicey of course, the arts scene is fickle, an artist might be the talk of the town the year before, but most average billionaires can cope with a tax loss or two, I mean a few million is small change to most oil billionaire and hotel empire heiresses. Then there's the PR angle. If you're say Angelina Jolie, you're sitting in your agents sumptuous office fretting about your future Hollywood career after snatching Brad from a bimbo from TV's Friends, you need to change your image fast. Show your feelings. Feel empathy. In the course of that psychological and philosophical makeover, asides adopting starving orphans, dabbling in world politics and taking on more taxing roles in cinema, you could always buy some art? I mean on some protozoic level buying lots of Warhols makes Dennis Hopper appear to be an intellectual. Angelina likes Banksy, it's street rather than boulevard, it's edgy but not in a grumpy superstar fashion, and the media will lap it up, which they did.
So rich or rich and famous, either can traipse around the world looking something a tad less than superficial, buying art they don't understand as an investment because their accountant and PR people think it will be a hoot. Besides the paparazzi will be there and you can talk about your new movie, song, biography, fashion label, charitable cause or perfume. Plus there's all that glamour, booze, intellectual bigwigs to expand and wow your outer social circle. In truth it's a barely spiritually higher than interior design, for it is essentially still shopping. It always was.
There's a debate going on at The Saatchi Gallery on the 29th March, it's called 'Art Fairs are about money not art'. Personally I prefer my title, but hey Saatchi won't even acknowledge my emails so there's no use bleating. Doors open at 7pm, the debate starts at 7:30pm and finishes at 9pm. They're charging £15 which seems a rip to me, it's funny but if they'd made it free they'd have a far more balanced debate. Who's going to spend £5 an hour for an argument? People with money and too much time on their hands. Anyway, here's a plan, If I was rich, or even wealthy enough I could do stupid things with money I'd do this.
Find a few homeless people around London. Sort them out with deposits for bedsits, get them signed on at the dole, dried out if they need it, food on the table, all that jazz. Then I'd ask each of them to do me a favour. I'd buy them some cool clobber, one could look like a toff, dressed head to tail in tweed and a deer stalker and a monocle to top it off. Another can be a rock chick, faux fur and bling to the nines. The third, who knows, an art critic replete with Armani suit and Italian leather shoes. Then give them each a ticket to the debate and ask them to argue fanatically about total nonsense.
The toff could shout "I only buy old masters. I like oils, they go with the stags' heads!". The rock chick could reply with "DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM? Where's the V.I.P section?!?!". The critic should just intersperse the debate with expletives in French and German and then walk up to the chairman and throw their vino over him in disgust.
Now that would be fun…
