A gallery assistant views Love It! Bite It! photo by Clara Molden
In 2005, Charles Saatchi shut down his gallery and purged his collection of the YBAs (Young British Artists) he groomed into art superstars. This Thursday, he premieres his new protégés, the YCAs or Young Chinese Artists, at his new four-story gallery in London's Duke of York Headquarters. It is the largest free-entry contemporary art gallery in the private hands, and there is tremendous excitement about Saatchi's latest finds.
What excited me is that the inaugural show, The Revolution Continues: New Art from China, contains one of the most remarkable pieces of dog art I have ever seen: Liu Wei's Love It! Bite It! It is a massive imagined city that includes the "tastiest bits" of Western Civilization, including the Coliseum, the Guggenheim, and the UN, made entirely of dog chews.
Described as a "parody of grotesque consumption…[and] created with painstaking detail." There is something so incredibly prescient about this piece. Behold the intricacy of the structures, and then consider our global markets disintegrating, devoured by insatiable greed. The same way a pack of dogs would devour Wei's installation if they were let loose in the gallery. It's downright primal, all too real, and simply brilliant!
Click on image for larger view + blow your mind.
Visit the Saatchi Gallery online for more information.
