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Saatchi's Chinese starter
Louise Jury, Chief Arts Correspondent6 Oct 2008
It is the most hotly anticipated gallery opening of 2008.
Two-and-a-half years after Charles Saatchi left his last home at County Hall on the South Bank, he is unveiling his new gallery in Chelsea.
He has personally spent a sum he refuses to name on transforming the old Duke of York's barracks off the King's Road into 70,000 square feet of hanging space.
With characteristic Saatchi bravura, he is opening with an exhibition of some of the most talked-about contemporary artists - who are also some of the most obscure.
The Revolution Continues: New Art From China features 24 of China's established and rising stars aged from 34 to 65. To connoisseurs, Zhang Dali, Zhang Xiaogang, Fang Lijun and Yue Minjun are big names. Younger artists such as duo Sun Yuan and Peng Yu, and Bai Yiluo are among those to watch. Only a few have had shows in London in recent years, at commercial galleries such as the Haunch of Venison.
But just as the advertising millionaire introduced Young British Artists such as Tracey Emin, Damien Hirst and the Chapman brothers to a mass audience a decade ago, he is set to do likewise for the Chinese.
The work includes an installation by Sun Yuan and Peng Yu, who are coming to the opening, of 13 sculptures of old men in motorised wheelchairs, and spot-the-difference paintings of the marriage of Prince Charles and Diana. There is a disturbing sculpture of hanging bodies, portraits of Chairman Mao and references both to traditional Chinese art techniques and Western influences-such as the sculptures of Duane Hanson and Ron Mueck.
More than a thousand people are expected for the opening party tomorrow night prior to public opening on Thursday. As ever, publicity-shy Saatchi will be absent from his own opening bash - he left his wife Nigella Lawson to act as hostess when County Hall threw open its doors.
Saatchi, 65, is already planning future shows for his new space and its 13 main galleries. With its clean white walls, it is more like his original home in Boundary Road, St John's Wood, than the old County Hall building in Westminster.
The next exhibition will be Out Of Arabia with young artists from Iran, Iraq - the country where he was born - and elsewhere in the Middle East.
