DAMIEN HIRST PLANS TO OPEN LONDON GALLERY

Damien Hirst is planning to rival his one-time mentor, Charles Saatchi, by opening a gallery of his own, Anthony Barnes reports in The Independent. Hirst has earmarked a 2500-square-foot site in Vauxhall, south London, as a forum for his own provocative works, as well as those of colleagues from his private collection. The gallery could provide a new starting point for the contemporary art trawl along the south bank of the Thames, which take in the Saatchi Gallery and Tate Modern. It would be the latest chapter in a feud between Hirst and Saatchi which saw the artist refuse to take part in a retrospective which Saatchi was mounting at his gallery in London’s County Hall.