COLEGIUL NATIONAL 'B.P.

HASDEU' - BUZAU

LUCRARE DE ATESTAT LA LIMBA ENGLEZA

YOUNG BRITISH ARTISTS A MARKETING TOOL TO
PROMOTE UK CONTEMPORARY ART DURING 1990s

PROFESOR COORDONATOR,
TOMA FLORIN

ELEV,
SIMION
ELENA-MIRELA
CLASA a XII-a H

2015, BUZAU

TABLE OF CONTENTS:
1. INTRODUCTION

page 3

2.

What does YBA art look like?

Introduction (William Blakes Early Years)

William Blake was born on November 28, 1757, in the Soho district of London,
England. He only briefly attended school, being chiefly educated at home by his
mother. The Bible had an early, profound influence on Blake, and it would remain a
lifetime source of inspiration, coloring his life and works with intense spirituality.
At an early age, Blake began experiencing visions, and his friend and journalist
Henry Crabb Robinson wrote that Blake saw God's head appear in a window when
Blake was 4 years old. He also allegedly saw the prophet Ezekiel under a tree and
had a vision of "a tree filled with angels." Blake's visions would have a lasting effect
on the art and writings that he produced.

At twenty, Blakes apprenticeship to Basire being ended, he attended the Academy

schools and drew from the antique under Keeper Moser, picking out for his chief
delight and most ardent study the drawings of Michael Angelo and Raphaela very
barbaric choice it was considered, according to the decadent taste of the period.
Blake's artistic ability became evident in his youth, and by age 10, he was enrolled
at Henry Pars's drawing school, where he sketched the human figure by copying
from plaster casts of ancient statues. At age 14, he apprenticed with an engraver.
Blake's master was the engraver to the London Society of Antiquaries, and Blake
was sent to Westminster Abbey to make drawings of tombs and monuments, where
his lifelong love of gothic art was seeded.

While Blake was educating himself in art, he had to earn his livelihood by engravers
work, and between 1779 and 1782 one or two booksellers employed him to engrave
designs after various artists. In 1780 Blake exhibited his first picture in the Academy,
The Death of Earl Godwin. It was only the twelfth exhibition of the institution, and
the first to be held at Somerset House.
Among these artists was Stothard, to whom, in 1782, Blake was introduced. Stothard
brought Flaxman and Blake together, and the three became warm friends. It was only
after many years, and then through the machinations of an evil man (the publisher
Cromek), that Blake became estranged from Stothard, and partially also from
Flaxman.

In 1792 died the great leader of English art, Sir Joshua Reynolds. His
work, concerned as it was with the exquisite graces of this passing
world, had nothing to say to Blake, who regarded it in the light of his
own artistic standpoint, with positive aversion. It often happens that

a man who feels it his burning mission to work out and reveal some
hitherto neglected or unseen aspect of truth, does so at the cost of a
one-sidednesswhich is a necessary defect of his quality. Blake could
no more appreciate Sir Joshuaat least at this stage of his being
than Sir Joshua could appreciate Blake. The characteristic notes
which Blake appended to Reynolds Discourses many years later,
express much of his dislike. Truly, it is easy to conceive of a mind
offering nothing but delight and admiration to Reynolds practice,
yet excited to a grave disapproval by much of his theory, or what he
states as his theory.
However, Reynolds, his practice and theory alike, were by Blake
swept into a limbo of unconditional condemnation, though
occasionally, in spite of the prejudice he nursed against Sir Joshua,
he flashed out notes of emphatic approval, on certain utterances in
the great mans Discourses.

Capitolul 1 The best 25 years in British art history

For better and worse, Damien Hirst3 and the class of '88 have shaped British and world culture
for a quarter of a century.
Promoted by exhibitions such as Brilliant!, launched into public debate by theTurner prize and
eventually set in stone at the Royal Academy with Sensation, Young British Art still shapes our
cultural scene. A Damien Hirst spin painting closed the Olympics.
Even where artists are obviously resisting the showmanship and saleability of the Hirst
generation (and such resistance has been the key to fashionable esteem for at least a decade), that
generation's ideas that art should be young and part of popular culture remain dominant.
Artists on this year's Turner shortlist may hate the thought that they are YBAs but they really are,
in their high valuation of youth and pop. If we are all Thatcherites now, our artists are definitely
all YBAs. Except for David Hockney.
From "classic" YBAs like Sarah Lucas and Marc Quinn to this year's art school graduates, the
drive to be new, modern, young and brave that Freeze announced in 1988 still shapes British art.
And where has that left us? Where is British art, after 25 years of being young?
Let's start with the best and the worst. None of the artists who exploded on to the scene back
then were as exciting and promising as Damien Hirst. He orchestrated the whole idea of a

movement, and really it was a backdrop for his own daring imagination. Hirst's animals in
formaldehyde were provocations and surrealist dreams. He spun pop art in a new, visceral
direction.
Today he is a national shame our most famous artist has become a hack painter and kitsch
sculptor who goes to inordinate lengths to demonstrate his lack of talent. Never has promise been
more spectacularly misleading.
And what of the mood he created? Some of the artists who appeared in Freeze, such as Mat
Collishaw, still make excellent work. But as for enduring masterpieces that will stand the test of
time how many of those has British art produced since 1988?
Advertisement
Well the art of Sarah Lucas is acridly memorable. That of Rachel Whitereadis profound. The
works of Jake and Dinos Chapman will keep scholars chortling in the library a century or two
from now.

'In an artwork youre always looking for artistic decisions, so an ashtray is perfect. An ashtray has
got life and death.' Damien Hirst

What is an artistic masterpiece anyway? Britain has never been good at creating sublime works
in marble. But consider the collection of Georgian satirical prints in the Prints and Drawings
room at the British Museum. Artists such as Gillray and Rowlandson are our heritage: rude,
crude and subversive. Think about Hogarth too an edgy artist critics snootily dismiss as a so-so
painter.
Face it, all ye who rail at modern British art: YBA art and its living aftermath, frompickled
fish to David Shrigley, fits beautifully into the Great British tradition of Hogarthian hilarity.
The difference is that while Hogarth had a chip on his shoulder about European art lording it
over local talent, the YBA revolution made London world-famous as an art city, with Glasgow
coming up in the side lane.
Warts and all, this has been the best 25 years in the history of British art. It never mattered more.

REACTION
Positive
Richard Cork (at one time art critic of The Times) has been a staunch advocate of the artists, as
has art writer Louisa Buck, and former Time Out art editor, Sarah Kent. Sir Nicholas Serota has
validated the artists by the nomination of several of them for the Turner Prize and their inclusion
in the Tate collection.
Maureen Paley said, "The thing that came out of the YBA generation was boldness, a belief that
you can do anything."[12]
Speaking in 2009, Iwona Blazwick the director of the Whitechapel Art Gallery said, "The YBA
moment is definitely now dead, but anyone who thinks they were a cut-off point is wrong. They
began something which has continued to grow ever since. It's not over."[13]
Negative
In 1998, John Windsor in The Independent said that the work of the YBAs seemed tame
compared with that of the "shock art" of the 1970s, including "kinky outrages" at the Nicholas
Treadwell Gallery, amongst which were a "hanging, anatomically detailed leather straitjacket,
complete with genitals", titled Pink Crucifixion, by Mandy Havers.[14]
In 1999 the Stuckists art group was founded with an overt anti-YBA agenda. In 2002 Britart was
heavily criticised by the leading conductor Sir Simon Rattle, who was, in return, accused of
having a poor understanding of conceptual and visual art.[citation needed]
Playwright Tom Stoppard made a public denunciation, and Brian Sewell (art critic of
the Evening Standard) has consistently been hostile, as has David Lee, the editor
of Jackdaw.Rolf Harris, the television presenter and artist, singled out Tracey Emin's My Bed as
the kind of installation that put people off art. "I don't see how getting out of bed and leaving the
bed unmade and putting it on show and saying that's worth, I don't know 31,000 ... I don't
believe it, I think it's a con."
For James Heartfield, "The 1990s art boom encouraged sloppiness. The Young British Artists
preferred the inspired gesture to patient work. They added public outrage to their palettes, only to
find that it faded very quickly."[15]
Members of the group are parodied in a regular cartoon strip by Birch, titled "Young British
Artists", in the British satirical magazine Private Eye.

The YBA's echo

The term Young British Artists was really no more than a marketing tool to promote UK
contemporary art during the 1990s. Strictly speaking, it includes only those artists who showed
at Freeze, or Sensation. However, the name is also used in a broader sense to embrace all
progressive, avant-garde British artists who achieved recognition during the late 1980s and 90s.
At its peak during the mid-1990s, the movement gained international media coverage, with
notable key works including The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone
Living by Damian Hirst, and My Bed by Tracey Emin, a dishevelled double bed surrounded by
detritus.

Thanks to the Government Art Collection , you can explore work from many of the YBAs
through Europeana to get you started weve made a selection of some of the
most prominent figures of the movement:
Damien Hirst
Michael Landy
Marc Quinn
Gary Hume
Jake and Dinos Chapman
Peter Blake
Mat Collishaw
Tracey Emin
Tacita Dean
Chris Ofili
Douglas Gordon
Rachel Whiteread
Liam Gillick
Ian Davenport
Anya Gallaccio
Fiona Rae
Angus Fairhurst
Angela Bulloch

A new termPost-YBAs has been coined to describe British artists emerging in the 2000s. They
include Darren Almond, Mike Nelson, Tim Noble, Oliver Payne, Nick Relph, Eva Rothschild,
Simon Starling, David Thorpe, Sue Webster, Carey Young, and others.

Conclusion
The YBA label proved to be a powerful brand and marketing tool, but it concealed huge diversity
between the artists involved. Now many of the artists involved such as Damien Hirst and Tracy
Emin have become part of the art establishment they were striking out against when they started.
Although maturing into different artists the YBAs are held together by their shared emergence in
the art world of the late 80s and early 90s. Other YBAs include Marc Quinn, Sarah Lucas, Sam
Taylor-Wood, Rachel Whiteread and Jake and Dinos Chapman.

Bibliography
The YBA label proved to be a powerful brand and marketing tool, but it concealed huge
diversity between the artists involved. Now many of the artists involved such as Damien Hirst
and Tracy Emin have become part of the art establishment they were striking out against when
they started. Although maturing into different artists the YBAs are held together by their shared
emergence in the art world of the late 80s and early 90s. Other YBAs include Marc Quinn,
Sarah Lucas, Sam Taylor-Wood, Rachel Whiteread and Jake and Dinos Chapman.