James Birch is a somewhat mysterious art dealer and curator, whose first great triumph was mounting a Francis Bacon exhibition in Moscow in 1988. He wrote a gripping book about that adventure, Bacon in Moscow, and has now written an even more gripping follow-up, about taking Gilbert and George to Moscow, Beijing and Shanghai.
Mounting the Moscow exhibition meant getting drunk every night, but Birch carried it off with aplomb
Birch was born ‘circa 1956’, according to Wikipedia, and grew up in Primrose Hill, London. Both his parents were artists and also communists, which he claims was not unusual in the 1960s (though I’d say it was, quite). At the age of 12 he wrote a fan letter to Chairman Mao and was rewarded with a calendar featuring photographs of Mao in heroic poses and a copy of The Little Red Book. While his classmates worried about the Vietnam War, he was following the progress of the Cultural Revolution.
He studied art history at Aix-en-Provence university, then worked as a driver for Adam and the Ants. He liked dressing up
as a way of hiding my face, who I really might be. I wanted so much to be part of something, but I still on occasion felt incredibly shy and awkward. I knew that art was my thing; I just wasn’t sure how to achieve that.
In 1978 he came third in Andrew Logan’s Alternative Miss World contest, dressed in turn as a giant hamburger (day wear), a tube of Ambre Solaire (beach wear) and a box of After Eight mints (evening wear). He started going to the Blitz Club, which is where, in 1979, he first met Gilbert and George.
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