1. The Young British Artists (YBAs)

2. Young British Artists (YBAs) - Context
During the hyper-conservative Thatcher era (1975 – 1990), contemporary art in England was not publicly supported.
Senior art critc Sarah Kent at London Time Out called Britain “a cultural backwater”.
1988, a group of art school students at Goldsmiths College began to put on their own shows in abandoned buildings – the most famous of which was the show Freeze
During the hyper-conservative Thatcher era (1975 – 1990), contemporary art in England was discouraged.
Senior art critc Sarah Kent at London Time Out called Britain “a cultural backwater”.
1988, a group of art school students at Goldsmiths College began to put on their own shows in abandoned buildings – the most famous of which was the show Freeze
Much-maligned PM Margaret Thatcher

3. Freeze – July, 1988, London Port Authority building
Organized by Damien Hirst, self-appointed leader of the group of 16 students
Show imitated the look of the Saatchi gallery, and attracted the attention of Saatchi himself, who became the group’s primary patron
Goldsmiths College professor Michael Craig-Martin, reflecting on the show, said, “it was a combination of youthful bravado, innocence, fortunate timing, good luck, and, of course, good work.”
Freeze was held in a “dingy” dock building, but intentionally imitated the look of the high-end Saatchi gallery, which attracted the attention of Charles Saatchi himself and he became the primary patron of the group. The professor Michael Craig-Martin aided the group with the exhibition and said it was, “a combination of youthful bravado, innocence, fortunate timing, good luck and of course good work.” The group was, as said before, not ideologically connected beyond their tutelage by Craig-Martin, who was of the Duchampian neo-Dada mindset. Goldsmiths was unique as a college because it did not differentiate between the mediums of high art, and painting and sculpture were taught concurrently.
Freeze, 1988, London Port Authority

4. Revitalization of Contemporary British Art
Numerous warehouse shows, with a shifting group of YBAs, gained wider critical attention and revitalized the relevance of British art in the contemporary market
Damien Hirst in Esquire, (below), Sarah Lucas Self-portrait with Fried Eggs (Right)
umerous warehouse shows, with a shifting group of YBAs, gained wider critical attention and revitalized the relevance of British art in the contemporary market - established publications such as Art Monthly, Contemporary Art, and Art Review, all re-launched to focus strongly on contemporary British artists. By the 1990s, after a collapse of the art market in London which led to the closure of competing galleries, the Saatchi gallery became extremely influential and focused almost exclusively on contemporary British artists. Encouraged by Saatchi, who was an advertiser, several YBAs, including Hirst, Gavin Turk, and Sarah Lucas, intentionally manipulated their public image to match their brash reputations and embraced the creation of a public persona as a part of their art.

5. Revitalization of Contemporary British Art
In early 90s, Saatchi gallery focused primarily on the YBAs
Encouraged by Saatchi, several YBAs including Hirst, Gavin Turk, Sarah Lucas explored publicity and persona as part of their art
Damien Hirst in Esquire, (below), Sarah Lucas Self-portrait with Fried Eggs (Right)
umerous warehouse shows, with a shifting group of YBAs, gained wider critical attention and revitalized the relevance of British art in the contemporary market - established publications such as Art Monthly, Contemporary Art, and Art Review, all re-launched to focus strongly on contemporary British artists. By the 1990s, after a collapse of the art market in London which led to the closure of competing galleries, the Saatchi gallery became extremely influential and focused almost exclusively on contemporary British artists. Encouraged by Saatchi, who was an advertiser, several YBAs, including Hirst, Gavin Turk, and Sarah Lucas, intentionally manipulated their public image to match their brash reputations and embraced the creation of a public persona as a part of their art.

6. Sensation show – 1997, The Royal Academy, London
Controversial Royal Academy show of the YBAs, organized by Saatchi, led to protests outside the exhibition, and the resignation of two Royal Academy members
Much younger audience than RA was used to – 80% of 300,000+ audience was under age 30
Controversial Royal Academy show of the YBAs, organized by Saatchi, led to protests outside the exhibition, and the resignation of two Royal Academy members. Controversial pieces included Marcus Harvey’s Myra, a portrait of child killer Myra Hindley made from children’s handprints, Damien Hirst’s The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living, a tiger shark suspended in formaldehyde, and Chris Ofili’s The Holy Virgin Mary, a portrait which incorporated pornographic images and elephant dung.
The audience was much younger than the Royal Academy was used to, and 80% of the more than 300,000 attendees were under the age of thirty
Sensation show, 1997, The Royal Academy

7. Post-Saatchi years and anti-YBA push-back
As YBAs became increasingly successful, British press and other artists became openly hostile to the group
Art critics accused them of empty sensationalism or “sloppiness”, while groups such as the Stuckists (led by ex- boyfriend of YBA Tracey Emin) published anti-conceptual art manifestos attacking the YBAs
Emin earched the Turner prize in 1999, while Hirst became the highest-paid and valued living artist, working with celebrities such as David Bowie, Kate Moss, and Rihanna
Tracey Emin, My Bed, 1999

8. Post-Saatchi years and anti-YBA push-back
As YBAs became increasingly successful, British press and other artists became openly hostile to the group
Art critics accused them of empty sensationalism or “sloppiness”, while groups such as the Stuckists (led by ex- boyfriend of YBA Tracey Emin) published anti-conceptual art manifestos attacking the YBAs
Emin earched the Turner prize in 1999, while Hirst became the highest-paid and valued living artist, working with celebrities such as David Bowie, Kate Moss, and Rihanna
David Bowie and Damien Hirst, in front of their collaboration Beautiful Hallo Space-Boy Painting (1995)

9. Selected Works -
Tracey Emin Everyone I Have Ever Slept With 1963 – (1995)
Tracey Emin’s work is defined by her frank personal honesty, and her first seminal work, Everyone I Have Ever Slept With, is indicative of her style. This is a tent with the names of everyone Emin had slept in bed with, not necessarily limited to sexual partners, and includes boyfriends, family, lovers, her grandmother, and two numbered fetuses. The floor of the tent read, “With myself, always myself, never forgetting.” The intensely private and vulnerable act of sleeping near someone thus becomes public display, echoed in Emin’s Turner prize-winning work My Bed. The work was destroyed in a fire in 2004, and Emin has not recreated it.

10. Selected Works -
Gillian Wearing Signs that say what you want them to say and not Signs that say what someone else wants you to say
(1992–3)
From the personal to the collective, in Gillian Wearing’s 1992 to 1993 series “Signs that say what you want them to say and not Signs that say what someone else wants you to say,” the honest and often poignant street portraits portray a divided and desperate Britain. Signs vary from the political, “Cut off the head and the body will die,” to the innocent, “I really love regent park,” to the deeply personal, “In the emptiness, women are an answer for me.”

11. Selected Works - Douglas Gordon 10 ms – 1 (1994)
From personal trauma to national trauma, Douglas Gordon’s video installation 10 ms – 1 shows ten minutes of looped and slowed down footage of a shell-shocked WW1 soldier falling to the ground and attempting to stand. The origin of the footage is unknown, whether it was a staged medical training video or a documentation of a real trauma victim, but the repetition and voyeurism of watching the frustrating and painful footage reflects on the nation’s guilt and lingering trauma over two world wars.

12. Selected Works -
Damien Hirst The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living (1991)
Finally, to one of my personal favorite contemporary works, and a piece that came to symbolize all of contemporary British art, Damien Hirst’s often-mocked but truly iconic The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living, a dead tiger shark suspended in formeldehyde, its jaws open. As we’ve seen for this entire course, British art has always grappled with the question of truth and materiality, and here Hirst displays an animal carcass not to /represent/ death, but to /confront us/ with it. And yet, as the title reminds us, a true comprehension of death is impossible for us, the living viewer.