Sarah Kent - Career

Career

Kent studied painting at the Slade School of Art and worked as an artist until 1977. She then became Exhibitions Director at the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) for two years, and also started writing for Time Out. At the ICA she staged exhibitions by Andy Warhol, Allen Jones and Christo, as well as feminist artist Alexis Hunter. Another show was of satirical art, Berlin a Critical View: Ugly Realism. Her own work changed from painting to photography, primarily of male nudes.

She became art editor of Time Out, for which she wrote reviews. She is now a well-known figure in the arts in London, and has appeared on radio and TV shows. She also works in a freelance capacity as an editor and critic, and has provided essays, catalogues and books for the Saatchi Gallery and White Cube gallery. She is the editor of Shark-Infested Waters: The Saatchi Collection of British Art in the 90s (Zwemmer, 1994).

She was an early advocate for the Young British Artists (YBAs), also known as Britart, and a strong supporter of Tracey Emin, helping to get her early exposure. Kent and Matthew Collings have been described as "the parents of the popularization process having audiences approaching half a million each" of "the explosion of art into mainstream culture in nineties London."

The connection with the YBAs has inevitably attracted criticism similar to that which is directed at the artists:

Many writers involved in the post-modern world deal in a flip and ironic way with both theory and criticism, for example, Jean Baudrillard or the London-based critic and reviewer, Sarah Kent, so that the line between serious theory and the entertainment industry are blurred. I would define the ironic as a refusal to state a sincere political or ethical stance, or if in stating a stance, to continually undermine this, or to change it as suits. It is the opposite of what used to be called 'engaged' or 'committed' or 'sincere'.

Another criticism is that Kent's freelance working for institutions, such as White Cube and the Saatchi Gallery, whose shows she also reviews in Time Out, is a conflict of interest.

Advocating Britart, she is on the opposite side of the fence from the traditionally oriented critic, Brian Sewell. This had led to personal comments in the media. In 1995, when asked about a suitable Christmas present for him (he keeps dogs), she replied:

I'd like to give him a large tank of formaldehyde in which he can pickle his bitches

Eight years later Sewell commented in one of his articles, referring to a heart operation:

I have made several wills, the first as a young soldier, all of them the precautionary wills of those who do not think of death as immediately relevant. Even on the night before my rib-cage was sawn open and my heart re-plumbed I was prepared to make a joke and bequeathed my eyes to Sarah Kent, the gushing art critic of Time Out, who is not blind but cannot see.

She is also mentioned in the lyrics to The Turner Prize Song Art or Arse? - You be the judge, written and performed by Billy Childish, on a Stuckists CD:

Damien Hirst got his fish in a tank

some say it's art others think it's wank

Sarah Kent says he's doing quite well

you gotta make your art and you gotta sell

The reactions to her mirror the divisions in contemporary art in Britain, and she is praised as a pioneer by Louisa Buck:

In 1992, she was a jurist on the Turner Prize panel chaired by Sir Nicholas Serota. The other members were Marie-Claude Beaud, Director, Foundation Cartier pour l'art contemporain, Paris, Robert Hopper, Director, Henry Moore Sculpture Trust, and Howard Karshan. The winner was Grenville Davey, and the other nominees Damien Hirst, David Tremlett and Alison Wilding.

Since November 2010 she contributes regularly to the arts desk: Sarah Kent author page on the arts desk website