Young British Artists or YBAs[1] (also referred to as Brit artists and Britart) is the

name given to a loose group of visual artists who first began to exhibit together in
London, in 1988. Many of the artists graduated from the BA Fine Art course at
Goldsmiths, in the late-1980s.
The scene began around a series of artist-led exhibitions held in warehouses and
factories, beginning in 1988 with the Damien Hirst-led Freeze and, in 1990, East
Country Yard Show and Modern Medicine. The acronym term "YBA" (or "yBa") was
not coined until 1996 (in Art Monthly magazine). It has become a historic term, as most
of the YBAs were born in the mid-1960s. They are noted for "shock tactics", use of
throwaway materials, wild-living, and an attitude "both oppositional and
entrepreneurial."[2] They achieved considerable media coverage and dominated British
art during the 1990sinternational survey shows in the mid-1990s included Brilliant!
and Sensation.
Many of the artists were initially supported and collected by Charles Saatchi. Leading
artists of the group include Damien Hirst and Tracey Emin. Key works by them are,
respectively, The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living, a shark
preserved in formaldehyde in a vitrine, and My Bed, a dishevelled double bed
surrounded by detritus

Origin
[edit] Goldsmiths
The core of the later-to-be YBAs, graduated from the Goldsmiths BA Fine Art degree
course in the classes of 1987, 1988 and 1989. Liam Gillick, Fiona Rae, Steve Park and
Sarah Lucas, were graduates in the class of 1987. Ian Davenport, Michael Landy, Gary
Hume, Anya Gallaccio, Henry Bond, Lala Meredith-Vula and Angela Bulloch, were
graduates in the class of 1988; whilst Damien Hirst, Angus Fairhurst, Mat Collishaw,
Simon Patterson, Abigail Lane and Sam Taylor-Wood, were graduates from the class of
1989. During the years 1987-1990, the teaching staff on the Goldsmiths BA Fine Art
included Jon Thompson, Richard Wentworth, Michael Craig-Martin, Ian Jeffrey, Helen
Chadwick, Mark Wallinger, Judith Cowan and Glen Baxter.

[edit] Freeze

Mat Collishaw Bullet Hole which was on display in the Freeze exhibition.
Main article: Freeze (exhibition)
A group of sixteen Goldsmiths students took part in a group exhibition of art, called
Freeze, of which Damien Hirst became the main organiser; he was still in the second
year of a BA in Fine Art.
Commercial galleries had shown a lack of interest in the project, and it was held in a
cheap alternative space, a London Docklands admin block (usually referred to as a
warehouse). The event resonated with the 'Acid House' warehouse rave scene prevalent
at the time, but did not achieve any major press exposure. One of its effects was to set an
example of artist-as-curatorin the mid 1990s artist-run exhibition spaces and galleries
became a feature of the London arts scene.
[edit] Other shows
Main article: East Country Yard Show
View of East Country Yard Show with Anya Gallaccio's installation in foreground, 1990.
In liaison with Hirst, Carl Freedman (who had been friends with him in Leeds before
Hirst moved to London and was helping to make Hirst's vitrines) and Billee Sellman
then curated two influential "warehouse" shows in 1990, Modern Medicine and
Gambler, in a Bermondsey former factory they designated Building One. To stage
Modern Medicine they raised 1,000 sponsorships from artworld figures including
Charles Saatchi. Freedman has spoken openly about the self-fulfilling prophecy these
sponsors helped to create, and also commented that not many people attended these
early shows, including Freeze. In 1990, Henry Bond and Sarah Lucas organized the
East Country Yard Show in a disused warehouse in London Docklands which was
installed over four floors and 16,000m2 of exhibition space. Writing in The Independent,
art critic Andrew Graham-Dixon said,
Goldsmiths graduates are unembarrassed about promoting themselves and
their work: some of the most striking exhibitions in London over the past few
months"The East Country Yard Show", or "Gambler", both staged in
docklandshave been independently organized and funded by Goldsmiths
graduates as showcases for their work. This has given them a reputation for
pushiness, yet it should also be said that in terms of ambition, attention to
display and sheer bravado there has been little to match such shows in the
country's established contemporary art institutions. They were far superior, for

instance, to any of the contemporary art shows that have been staged by the
Liverpool Tate in its own multi-million-pound dockland site.[3]
Established alternative spaces such as City Racing at the Oval in London and Milch
gave many artists their first exposure. There was much embryonic activity in the
Hoxton/Shoreditch area of East London focused on Joshua Compston's gallery. In 1991
the Serpentine Gallery presented a survey of this group of artists with the exhibition
Broken English. In 1992, Charles Saatchi staged a series of exhibitions of Young British
Art, the first show included works by Sarah Lucas, Rachel Whiteread and Damien Hirst.
A second wave of Young British Artists appeared in 1992-3 through exhibitions such as
'New Contemporaries', 'New British Summertime' and 'Minky Manky' (curated by Carl
Freedman). This included Douglas Gordon, Christine Borland, Fiona Banner, Tracey
Emin, Tacita Dean, Georgina Starr and Jane and Louise Wilson. One exhibition which
included several of the YBA artists was the 1995 quin-annual British Art Show.
[edit] Revitalization of British art scene

Sarah Lucas's photo The Artist Eating a Banana 1990.

The Young British Artists revitalised (and in some cases spawned) a whole new
generation of contemporary commercial galleries such as Karsten Schubert, Sadie Coles,
Victoria Miro, Maureen Paley's Interim Art, and Jay Jopling's White Cube. The spread
of interest improved the market for contemporary British art magazines through
increased advertising and circulation. Frieze launched in 1991 embraced the YBAs from
the start while established publications such as Art Monthly, Art Review, Modern
Painters and Contemporary Art were all re-launched with more focus on emerging
British artists.
[edit] Charles Saatchi's involvement

The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living by Damien Hirst
(1991). An iconic work of the YBA art scene.
One of the visitors to Freeze was Charles Saatchi, a major contemporary art collector
and co-founder of Saatchi and Saatchi, the London advertising agency. Saatchi then
visited Gambler in a green Rolls Royce and, according to Freedman, stood openmouthed with astonishment in front of (and then bought) Hirst's first major "animal"
installation, A Thousand Years, consisting of a large glass case containing maggots and
flies feeding off a rotting cow's head. (The installation was later a notable feature of the
Sensation exhibition.)

Saatchi became not only Hirst's main collector, but also the main sponsor for other
YBAsa fact openly acknowledged by Gavin Turk. The contemporary art market in
London had dramatically collapsed in mid-1990 due to a major economic recession, and
many commercial contemporary galleries had gone out of business. Saatchi had until
this time collected mostly American and German contemporary art, some by young
artists, but most by already established ones.
His collection was publicly exhibited in a series of shows in a large converted factory
building in St John's Wood, north London. Previous Saatchi Gallery shows had included
such major figures as Warhol, Guston, Alex Katz, Serra, Kiefer, Polke, Richter and
many more. In the early-1990s, Saatchi altered his focus to emerging British art.
Saatchi put on a series of shows called "Young British Artists" starting in 1992, when a
noted exhibit was Damien Hirst's "shark" (The Physical Impossibility of Death in the
Mind of Someone Living), which became the iconic work of British art in th 1990s,[4]
and the symbol of Britart worldwide.[5] In addition to (and as a direct result of)
Saatchi's patronage, the Young British Artists benefited from intense media coverage.
This was augmented by controversy surrounding the annual Turner Prize, (one of
Britain's few major awards for contemporary artists), which had several of the artists as
nominees or winners. Channel 4 had become a sponsor of the competition, leading to
television profiles of the artists in prime-time slots.
[edit] Becoming the establishment

Cover of Brilliant! exhibition cataloguea YBA showcase in the USA in 1995.

The consolidation of the artists' status began in 1995 with a large-scale group exhibition
Brilliant! held at the Walker Art Center a respected art museum in Minneapolis, USA.
The term "yBa" was coined by Simon Ford in a feature "Myth Making" in March 1996
in Art Monthly magazine.[6]
Art dealer Jay Jopling began to represent YBAs Jake & Dinos Chapman, Tracey Emin,
Marcus Harvey, Damien Hirst, Gary Hume, Marc Quinn and Sam Taylor-Wood, whom
he married in 1998.
In 1997, the Royal Academy, staged an exhibition of the private art collection of Charles
Saatchi titled Sensation, which included many works by YBA artists.
The exhibition was actually a showing of Charles Saatchi's private collection of their
work, and he owned the major pieces. The liaison was effected by the Academy's
Norman Rosenthal, even though there was strong opposition from some of the
Academicians, three of whom resigned. Controversy engendered in the media about the
show, particularly over Marcus Harvey's work Myra, served to reinforce the YBAs'
importance.[citation needed] When the show toured to New York there was further

controversy caused by the inclusion of Chris Ofili's work.[citation needed]

[edit] The YBAs since 1997

My Bed by Tracey Emin

In 1997, YBA Gillian Wearing won the annual Turner Prize. In 1998, YBA Chris Ofili
won the annual Turner Prize.
In 1999 Tracey Emin was nominated for the Turner Prize. Her main exhibit, My Bed,
consisting literally of her dishevelled, stained bed, surrounded by detritus including
condoms, slippers and soiled underwear, created an immediate and lasting media impact
and further heightened her prominence. The emergence at the same time of an anti-YBA
group, The Stuckists, co-founded by her ex boyfriend, Billy Childish, gave another angle
to media coverage.
In 2002, YBA Keith Tyson won the annual Turner Prize. In 2003, YBAs Jake and Dinos
Chapman and Anya Gallaccio were nominated for the annual Turner Prize.
On 24 May 2004, a fire in a storage warehouse destroyed some important works from
the Saatchi collection, including the Chapman Brothers' Hell and Tracey Emin's "tent",
Everyone I Have Ever Slept With 19631995.
In 2008, YBA Angus Fairhurst committed suicide.
[edit] Members of the Royal Academy of Art
Several of the YBAs have been elected as lifetime members of the Royal Academy of
Arts in London (founded by George III in 1768); hence they are "Royal Academicians,"
and may use the letters "RA" after their name to indicate this.
Tracey Emin was elected on 27 March, 2007; Gary Hume was elected on 24 May, 2001;
Michael Landy was elected on May 29, 2008; Fiona Rae was elected on 28 May 2002;
Gillian Wearing was elected on 11 December 2007.[7]
[edit] Social relationships
Writing in his book Lucky Kunst: The Rise and Fall of Young British Art, the
commentator Gregor Muir said,
The second part of 'Lucky Kunst', featuring a group of young artists from New
York, opened some weeks later. We seemed to lose Sam [Taylor-Wood]
shortly after the opening of part one, later finding out that she had split with
partner Jake Chapman for artist Henry Bond, a well-known Goldsmiths
graduate. In the early days, Bond had formed part of a clique with fellow
Goldsmiths artist Liam Gillick; his then partner Angela Bulloch, had gone out

with Damien Hirst before Hirst went out with Maia Norman, Jay Jopling's
former partner. Taylor-Wood would eventually split with Henry Bond and
marry Jopling while Liam Gillick went on to marry Sarah Morris, one of the
American artists featured in part two of 'Lucky Kunst.'[8]
[edit] Reaction
[edit] 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."[9]
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."[10]
[edit] 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.
[11]
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."[12][1]

Members of the group are parodied in a regular cartoon strip by Birch, titled "Young
British Artists", in the British satirical magazine Private Eye.
[edit] Artists exhibited in Freeze

Damien Hirst
Angus Fairhurst
Sam Taylor-Wood
Henry Bond

Steven Adamson
Angela Bulloch
Mat Collishaw
Ian Davenport
Angus Fairhurst
Anya Gallaccio
Damien Hirst
Gary Hume
Michael Landy
Abigail Lane
Sarah Lucas
Lala Meredith-Vula
Richard Patterson
Stephen Park
Fiona Rae

[edit] Artists exhibited in Brilliant!

Henry Bond
Glenn Brown
Jake and Dinos Chapman
Adam Chodzko
Mat Collishaw

Tracey Emin
Angus Fairhurst
Anya Gallaccio
Liam Gillick
Damien Hirst
Gary Hume
Michael Landy
Abigail Lane
Sarah Lucas
Chris Ofili
Steven Pippin
Alessandro Raho
Georgina Starr
Sam Taylor-Wood
Gillian Wearing
Rachel Whiteread

[edit] Other YBAs

Fiona Banner[13][14]
Christine Borland
Tacita Dean[15]
Douglas Gordon
Marcus Harvey
Marc Quinn
Jane and Louise Wilson
Jenny Saville