London's Saatchi Gallery, art donated to U.K.
Privately owned space and art to become Museum of Contemporary Art
British art collector Charles Saatchi has donated his London gallery, with its 200 works, to the British government.
The 70,000-square-foot exhibition space will be renamed the Museum of Contemporary Art, London, with works valued at more than $37 million US.
Some of the more famous creations that are being donated include Tracey Emin's My Bed — essentially, a messed-up bed with liquor bottles, condoms and cigarette butts strewn on and around it. As well, there are pieces from artists including China's Zhang Dali and India's Jitish Kallat.
"I wish more people had that kind of vision," said Emin upon hearing the news.
Saatchi, co-founder of the Saatchi & Saatchi ad agency, has become one of the world's foremost collectors of contemporary art,
He helped support the Young British Artists movement of the 1990s, which made Damien Hirst and Emin millionaires.
Saatchi sponsored a 1997 exhibit, Sensation, which featured Hirst's shark pickled in formaldehyde and Emin's tent appliquéd with names, Everyone I Have Ever Slept With 1963-1995.
The New York Sensation show in 1999 at the Brooklyn Museum offended many with Chris Ofili's portrait of the Virgin Mary adorned with elephant dung.
The gallery, housed in a massive stone building on London's King's Road in the Chelsea district, is expected to remain at its location "for the foreseeable future."
Saatchi Gallery's staff and management team are also expected to remain.
With files from The Associated Press