Young British Artists - Becoming The Establishment

Becoming The Establishment

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.

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. When the show toured to New York there was further controversy caused by the inclusion of Chris Ofili's work.