Taking the Mickey out of Saatchi

It is a novel way of undermining a powerful figure, but artist Robert Gordon McHarg III has published a book which features 101 different photographs of Charles Saatchi wearing a variety of silly and sinister costumes.



The small book, with the title HIM, repeatedly shows the face and upper body of what appears to be the country's most influential art collector. In fact the succession of arresting images were created by simply dressing a larger-than-life waxwork figure of Saatchi in a series of bizarre outfits. In one of the McHarg shots the art mogul is dressed as a PC Plod-style copper from Toy Town, in the next he is a cowboy, while in another the Baghdad-born former star of the advertising industry is shown in the uniform and red beret commonly associated with Saddam Hussein. Perhaps the most telling photograph in the book though, depicts Saatchi wearing a large round pair of black mouse ears above the inscription Mickey Him.



McHarg, a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, has explained that his impulse to ridicule, or at least play with, the persona of a man who is frequently accused by artists of playing games with the contemporary art market was prompted by the hope that he could make a stand against the current concentration on the price of modern art pieces.

'The idea was to make an artwork that wasn't for sale,' he said. 'In a sense, it's the artist collecting the collector. A David and Goliath battle over power and punchlines.'

HIM, is published by Trolley Books.