Invitation to disapprove
Sir: The notion of a Nick Serota-Charles Saatchi-Goldsmiths' College plot to take control of modern art is absurd.
Some debunking is in order. Of course some over-promoted young artists are Flash Harrys. And Mr Auty is a good debunker (though it is, surely, somewhat exaggerated to give him both his column and the letters page [20 February]?).
Surely the point is to encourage all sorts of art — conceptual, perceptual, minimal- ist, maximalist, abstract, figurative. From this ferment, the good will emerge and sur- vive and the sensationalists will not.
Over-encouraging the young is an unusu- al crime. This country is full of talented artists of all kinds, but they exist in an intel- lectual and collecting climate that is notably inhospitable to contemporary art.
What your readers will not know from reading The Spectator is that art which its critic does not like is popular with the pub- lic. Lots of people went to the Tate to see the Turner Prize show. The Hayward's cur- rent Gravity and Grace sculpture exhibition is also proving popular.
I hope that many Spectator readers go and disapprove for themselves.
David Gordon
Chairman, Contemporary Art Society, Tate Gallery, 20 John Islip Street, London SW!
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