Art of The United Kingdom - Contemporary Art

Contemporary Art

Post-modern, contemporary British art, particularly that of the Young British Artists, has been said to be "characterised by a fundamental concern with material culture ... perceived as a post-imperial cultural anxiety". The annual Turner Prize, founded in 1984 and organized by the Tate, has developed as a highly publicized showcase for contemporary British art. Among the beneficiaries have been several members of the Young British Artists (YBA) movement, which includes Damien Hirst, Rachel Whiteread, and Tracey Emin, who rose to prominence after the Freeze exhibition of 1988, with the backing of Charles Saatchi and achieved international recognition with their version of conceptual art. This often featured installations, notably Hirst's vitrine containing a preserved shark. The Tate gallery and eventually the Royal Academy also gave them exposure. The influence of Saatchi's generous and wide-ranging patronage was to become a matter of some controversy, as was that of Jay Jopling, the most influential London gallerist.

The Sensation exhibition of works from the Saatchi Collection was controversial in both the UK and the US, though in different ways. At the Royal Academy press-generated controversy centred on Myra, a very large image of the murderer Myra Hindley by Marcus Harvey, but when the show travelled to New York City, opening at the Brooklyn Museum in late 1999, it was met with intense protest about The Holy Virgin Mary by Chris Ofili, which had not provoked this reaction in London. While the press reported that the piece was smeared with elephant dung, although Ofili's work in fact showed a carefully rendered black Madonna decorated with a resin-covered lump of elephant dung. The figure is also surrounded by small collage images of female genitalia from pornographic magazines; these seemed from a distance to be the traditional cherubim. Among other criticism, New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, who had seen the work in the catalogue but not in the show, called it "sick stuff" and threatened to withdraw the annual $7 million City Hall grant from the Brooklyn Museum hosting the show, because "You don't have a right to government subsidy for desecrating somebody else's religion."

In 1999, the Stuckists figurative painting group which includes Billy Childish and Charles Thomson was founded as a reaction to the YBAs. In 2004, the Walker Art Gallery staged The Stuckists Punk Victorian, the first national museum exhibition of the Stuckist art movement. The Federation of British Artists hosts shows of traditional figurative painting. Jack Vettriano and Beryl Cook have widespread popularity, but not establishment recognition. Banksy made a reputation with street graffiti and is now a highly valued mainstream artist.

Antony Gormley produces sculptures, mostly in metal and based on the human figure, which include the 20 metres (66 ft) high Angel of the North near Gateshead, one of the first of a number of very large public sculptures produced in the 2000s, Another Place, and Event Horizon. The Indian-born sculptor Anish Kapoor has public works around the world, including Cloud Gate in Chicago and Sky Mirror in various locations; like much of his work these use curved mirror-like steel surfaces. The environmental sculptures of British earth works artist Andy Goldsworthy have been created in many locations around the world. Using natural found materials they are often very emphemeral, and are recorded in photographs of which several collections in book form have been published. Grayson Perry works in various media, including ceramics.