Saatchi’s Back…and Big on China

Three years ago, London lost one of its more provocative homes for art when collector Charles Saatchi decided to break his lease at Country Hall on the Thames and seek a new location to showcase his oddball sensibility and ragtag team of buzzy artists (the confessional Tracey Emin, animal-preserving Damien Hirst, and Chris Ofili, famed for painting the Virgin Mary with elephant dung). Now, the collector has finally opened the doors at his new three-story exhibition space in Chelsea, kicking it off with a survey of Chinese art stars . He plans to stage a show of hot artists from Iraq and Iran in early 2009. Reviews have been mixed so far, but you can’t really blame Charles for trying to capture the international zeitgeist, one sliced-up cow at a time.