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Momart is a British company specialising in the storage, transportation, and installation of works of art. A major proportion of their business is maintaining (often delicate) artworks in a secure, climate-controlled environment. The company maintains two warehouse facilities adapted for this task. Momart's clients include the Saatchi Gallery, National Gallery, Tate Modern, Tate Britain and Buckingham Palace. The company received considerable media attention in 2004 when a fire broke out in one of their warehouses, destroying the works in it, including important works by Young British Artists such as Tracey Emin.

The 2004 warehouse fire

In the evening of 24 May 2004 fire broke out in Momart's storage warehouse in Leyton, east London. The blaze, which continued to smoulder for nearly a day, destroyed almost all of the artworks stored within. As well as works from other collections, over 100 items from the Saatchi collection of so-called Britart were lost. Charles Saatchi later commented "Many of these pieces are great personal favourites and irreplaceable in British art." Some of the artists themselves were, however, more reticent; Tracey Emin admitted "I'm upset, but I'm also upset about those whose wedding got bombed Iraq, on May 19, and people being dug out from mud in the Dominican Republic."

Other collectors who lost art treasures included the author, Shirley Conran and the artist, Gillian Ayres.

Art industry insiders noted that the insurance value of the works lost in the fire, particularly the "Britart" works in Saatchi's collection, would be many times their initial purchase price, and that a comparable rise could be expected in the market values of the remaining (and future) works by artists whose works were lost. One art insurance specialist valued the lost work at £50m. Some have speculated that the fire was started deliberately in order to obtain the insurance money.

Critics attacked young British artist Stuart Semple and his agent Uri Geller for trying to cash in on a tragedy, after salvaging remains from the fire and creating a new artwork. Causing a major legal debate concerning the ownership of the remains from the fire.

Christopher Redgrave, son of William Redgrave, whose major sculpture The Event was in the fire, visited twice and manage to retrieve over 30 out of 228 bronze figures, though cutting his hands badly in the process. He described the scene:

As far as is known he is the only person out of the artists or artists' relatives to have been to the site; he said, "this building was inappropriate for what they are doing. There's no way around that." Meek, James 2004"Art into Ashes" The Guardian, 23 September 2004. Accessed April 15, 2006

At Christmas, 2004, Momart commissioned the Chapman Brothers to design their Christmas corporate gift. They produced a spoof Momart zippo lighter. Dinos Chapman commented:

We didn't have to think very hard. Our work burns, the company comes to us: there's a trajectory. What else could we do, but come up with the idea of a Zippo lighter with the word Momart on it?.

Works known lost in fire

See also

Notes and references

External links

British art | Service companies of the United Kingdom

 

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the "Momart".

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