Describing the figure of Charles Saatchi is a rather tough deed.  In the Seventies he could have been defined as the greatest English Art Director, considering that with his brother  Maurice he founded the advertising agency Saatchi&Saatchi, which with its campaigns saw Mrs Thatcher rise to power. But it is more complicated now to spend words about him. 
The art system has been trying to define Mr Saatchi’s role for too many years now.  He has always been described as a collector, a dealer or a promoter, but actually he could bear the title of “King Midas” of the contemporary, given that he has an wonderful ability to turn into celebrities all the artists that he takes under his wing.  In other words, Saatchi is the man who is known worldwide as the collector who can create trends and dictate fashion.  
Just think of when he started to accumulate English art from the Nineties, since that moment the whole world has been buying the works of the YBAs (Young British Artists), especially Damien Hirst and Tracey Emin’s works.  Now that the YBA generation is recognized at International level, Charles Saatchi is directing his attention towards Chinese and Middle-Eastern art. And this can be inferred from the opening of his new gallery in London. 
In an imposing and magnificent Georgian-style building, on 9th October Mr Saatchi opened to the public his brand new London venue with an event dedicated to art Made in China.  The opening exhibition of the new Saatchi gallery is entitled “The Revolution Continues: New Art from China” and is dedicated to 24 famous or almost debutant Chinese painters and sculptors.  Names such as Yue Minjun, Zhang Xiaogang and Zeng Fanzhi, Chinese artists who are by now proper stars in the art field and especially on the market, as their works are worth millions and millions of dollars.
However, the most surprising installation, that takes up entirely one of the 15 main rooms of the building (more than 7 thousand square metres altogether) was produced by Sun Yuan and Peng Yu, two emerging artists who come from the faraway Asiatic world of art.  It is a sort of “political hospice” where the two artists have placed thirteen elderly people on automated wheelchairs that constantly bump into each other.  A metaphor, according to the duo, of the state of the United Nations.  The gel sculptures, which are very realistic, evoke disarmed world leaders:  one is divided with rows of decorations on its chest, another has an Arab dignitary’s keffiyeh, one has an orthodox bishop’s cassock, another is wearing headphones for the simultaneous translation of an impossible international conference.
Then there are the surreal war machines by Shi Jinsong, who enjoys transforming, prams, pushchairs and baby-walkers by adding rifles, laser gunlayers and sharp blades.  We then find the giant excrement by Liu Wei.
After the Chinese of The Revolution Continues, which will continue until 18th January 2009, Saatchi has planned a Middle-Eastern exhibition, with new talents from Iraq and Iran.  It really seems that art from the Islamic countries is going to be Saatchi’s new interest.  This suspect had already emerged when, during the Dubai Art, one of his assistants had bought a work by Pakistani artist Huma Mulij.  Now “King Mida’s” new tendency is becoming a certainty thanks to the palimpsest of events in his new gallery in the Duke of York’s Headquarters. In other words, the most recent artistic love, which for Saatchi means also an economic deal, is Middle-Eastern contemporary art, besides Chinese art.
At the press preview for the new gallery, director Rebecca Wilson reassured the journalists about Mr Saatchi not being there (he does not like to be seen on social occasions) by saying: “Charles is hereabout; but no, he is not going to talk to you.  That is why I am here”. Mrs Wilson does not want to disclose how much it cost to convert an ex barracks into a gallery (according to rumours about 4 million euros), but she points out that it will be the only museum of contemporary art of such dimensions that is completely free to the public.  In this direction an essential role is played by the agreement stipulated with Phillips de Pury & Company’s auction house that will allow free entrance (in the old venue entrance had been set at £ 7 for two years) even for special exhibitions.  With this move Saatchi, as a brilliant strategist, is predicting to receive more than a million visitors every year, against the 600,000 of the previous venue. (translated by Giorgina Arcuri)