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12 Cool Art on DisplAy the saatchi phenomenon Jim McGuigan This chapter looks at a specific development in the art world that promotes the neoliberal usurpation of the public sector in the cultural field and, in an exemplary case, has virtually replaced it: “the Saatchi phenomenon” and the marketing of cool art in general. It also looks at a marginalized counterpoint to that phenome- non as a reminder of the cultural opposition to capitalism and inequality. “The Saatchi phenomenon” and neoliberalism The role of Charles Saatchi in the British art world, in Howard Becker’s (1982) sense of “art world,” has been debated fiercely since the late 1980s. “Supercollector,” “patron,” “dealer” – what has it been? In their regularly updated book, Super­ collector: A Critique of Charles Saatchi, Rita Hatton and John Walker ([2000] 2010) have tracked the former advertising executive’s entry into the art market and the various phases of his activity within it. In partnership with his brother Maurice, through the Saatchi Saatchi agency, Charles had masterminded the Conservative party’s advertising campaign for the general election that brought Margaret Thatcher to power in 1979, thereby ensuring his lifelong demonization on the left of British politics. The agency went from strength to strength in subsequent years. Saatchi Saatchi’s rise to global prominence, however, became over- stretched to the point where the brothers themselves were later ejected from their own agency, whereon they established another one, M. C. Saatchi, which was also successful. Maurice was to become chair of the Tory party. Charles remained intriguingly detached from direct engagement in politics and eventually departed from advertising altogether in order to concentrate on his greatest love: t