Kour Pour

The Young British Artists or YBAs are a group of artists, including painters, sculptors, photographers, installation and video artists based in the UK. Many of these artist, but not all of them, attended Goldsmiths College of Art. In 1988 a group of 16 students from the school took part in the now famous "Freeze" exhibition organized mainly by the young Damien Hirst. The event was held in a warehouse in the docklands area as there was no interest from galleries and very little public funding for the arts in the UK. Freeze was then followed by two other shows "Modern Medicine" and "Gambler."

It was at the Gambler exhibition where major art collector Charles Saatchi bought Damien Hirst's first major piece "A Thousand Years." (I posted a blog of Hirst talking about this piece so please watch!) Saatchi later collected many of the other YBA's work and would exhibit it at his Saatchi gallery in London during the early 90's.

Saatchi invested in these young artist at a time of recession when the art market had collapsed in England. However, with his collecting power and name to add to the artists he bought and exhibited the YBA's soon got much attention. In one show titled "Young British Artists" Damien Hirst exhibited his now world famous "The physical impossibility of death in the mind of someone living" a tiger shark submerged in a glass tank filled with formaldehyde.

In 1997 the Royal Academy staged a major, definitive exhibition of the YBA's work titled "Sensation." This was actually a showing of Charles Saatchi's private collection in which he owned the major pieces.  Controversy engendered in the media about the show, particularly over Marcus Harvey's work "Myra," a portrait of muderer Myra Hindley composed of children's hand-prints. Later on when the show toured to New York there was even greater controversy caused by Chris Ofili's work "The Holy Virgin Mary."

Since the Sensation show many of the YBA's have enjoyed other success. One example is Tracey Emin who in 1999 was nominated for the Turner Prize Award. Although Emin did not win the prize she got major media attention for her controversial "My Bed" piece, consisting literally of her dishevelled stained bed, surrounded by detritus including condoms, slippers and soiled underwear. Emin is now one of the leading contemporary artists in the world and shows at The White Cube and Gagosian galleries.

In the future I will post more detailed information on the YBA's but for now here is a list of some of the artist for you to look up...

List of YBA's who exhibited in Freeze.

Other YBA's include.

"A Thousand Years" is a very provocative work that actually contains an entire lifecycle of several maggots. The maggots hatch out of a minimal white box and then feed on a cow's head conveniently placed in the larger glass case. Some of the flies then die in the "insect-o-cuter" while others survive to continue their rather revolting cycle. 

Hirst also talks about his new pieces in relation to Francis Bacon. 

2006 Gagosian Gallery

Another portrait from Robert Wilson's Voom project. The colours are amazing. Watch Closely.

Director and designer Robert Wilson has unveiled a life-size video portrait of Brad Pitt for the December Vanity Fair- their first-ever Art Issue. This was also exhibited at Los Angeles Ace Gallery in 2007.

Interview with Takashi Murakami by Jonathan Ross on Japanorama