BOILER ROOM ART

BOILER ROOM ARTIST
@ The Museum of New Art
In the art world, Charles Saatchi’s name is already written in stone. To some he is the greatest thing that ever happened to contemporary art. His passion for art is unquestioned. To others, however, he is a dealer in collector's stock, using his influence to manipulate the market. He buys an artist's work in bulk and at low prices, then watches. There are many takers for the Charles Saatchi brand. Art prices can both rocket and plummet at his whim.
There once was a time - and it wasn't so long ago - that Mr Saatchi used to spend his Saturday mornings trawling the edgier, grungier, not-yet-gentrified areas of London for up-and-coming, smart young art talent.
The British collector still goes shopping on Saturday mornings, but these days he mostly stays closer to home in Chelsea. And his discoveries now tend to be more modest when you consider his latest stumble on an art find in the downstairs of his new Chelsea gallery at Sloane Square.
Upon surveying recent renovation in the basement of his new gallery, Mr Saatchi was startled by 56 year-old Pottinger’s boiler room walls which were spattered with mud patching and of half-finished rollered paint. "My God, this is what great art should be." said Saatchi. "Something that gives real visual pleasure and makes you sit up and think, not the pseudo-controversial rehashed claptrap that so many believe is cutting-edge art."
Plenty of people have had the dream of finding a lost or hidden masterpiece in their attic, but how does one respond to what they find a common worker doing in their cellar? Mr Saatchi isn’t alone in his convictions. Such "isolation and visual focus denotes importance: the greater the masterpiece, the greater its separation from other objects that might compete for attention." Victoria Newhouse writes in her book, Art and the Power of Placement.
Pottinger's boiler room art has been likened to the recent discovery of British cave paintings in Church Hole cave in Creswell Crags, Derbyshire. It is that important to Mr Saatchi, who almost never grants interviews or speaks publicly. He has described the fresh drywall work in his gallery's basement as "infinitely more exciting than almost anything seen upstairs in years".

Martin Pottinger was born in Leeds in 1950. He studied at the British Gypsum Drywall Academy training centre at East Leake, in Leicestershire.
SAATCHI GALLERY LINK (click)
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