Third Edition. This book is the only in-depth study of Charles Saatchi as an art collector. It tells the story of the Saatchi advertising agencies, the famous Silk-Cut campaign and political posters for the Tory Party, and their effort to achieve global domination by means of take-overs and acquisitions. It argues that advertising values permeate the kind of art Charles supports. However, it also discusses works by artists such as Hans Haacke and Jamie Wagg that are critical of Saatchi. Also considered is the influence Saatchi has exercised on public galleries and institutions.
It explains how Saatchi devised a whole value-adding apparatus collection, gallery, exhibitions, tame critics, books in order to boost the monetary worth of the art objects he purchased cheaply from young artists desperate for fame. The Saatchi Collection is not permanent repeated sales and purchases means that it mutates all the time. Exhibitions of the YBAs such as Sensation in London and New York ensured maximum publicity and the invention of spurious art movements, such as the New Neurotic Realism, indicated a desire to determine the course of the history of art.

The text is informed by the political and sociological writings of Marx, Veblen and Raymonde Moulin. While it cites a wide range of opinions about Saatchi, it is primarily a hostile critique written from an anti-capitalist perspective. Those who dominate the economy, politics and ideology - and culture too use their power for their own benefit. Their patronage of art is an alibi for continuing the system of exploitation and inequality, and deflecting criticism. This book illuminates the process of control. If knowledge really is power, then it will have a use-value.
The second edition contained a new chapter of 17,000 words that discussed his gifts, sales and purchases, exhibitions since 1999, the power couple Charles and Nigella Lawson, and the new Saatchi Gallery at County Hall.
The third edition contains a new chapter of 11,000 words that considers exhibitions he mounted during 2004, the Momart fire, the complaint by the Stuckists, his first interview on the record, and Saatchis new agenda of promoting painting in 2005.
What reviewers said about the first edition:
Small and malignant, this book slots into the pocket as snugly as a gunslingers Bible. Keith Miller, TLS.
Takes a fresh look at the shadowy world of private patronage as it operates today. Steve Jones, Socialist Appeal.
A thorough-going account of Saatchis rise to the status of Supercollector and an indictment of the role of advertising in the advancement of capitalism and how this implicitly endangers the field of cultural production. Roger Cook, Art History.
A valuable counter balance to the weight of vanity publications associated with the subject. Colin Gleadell, Art Monthly.
Simultaneously entertaining and relentless in its structure good value for money. Julian Freeman, The Art Book.

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