Young Gifted and White
A few things I wanted to share about the yBa movement.
Apparently it all started in the 80s-90s with a few artist sponsored by Charles Saatchi. They became famous after a few won the Turner price (at a time where the price was itself hypermediatised having been endorsed by channel four). It was also a period categorised in my opinion by the rise of ostentation as the main driver to society - ie MTV blingbling culture, 'affordable' luxury and pop up celebrity. Furthermore, with with the end of communism (1989 putting an end to the petrol choc of the 70s) marked by the progressive disappearance of industrial jobs, manual workers were replaced by urban white collar office workers and the dominant social values shifted with them. Fashion, aesthetics and appearance become drivers of social status and social appurtenance blurred further. Trends and ideas “trickled up” from the masses rather than trickle down from 'the rich' - ie, MTV, the rise of 'social media', reality TV and wide diffusion of 'branding'. These can be seen as causes as well as consequences of the social changes of that time. Trends evolved unpredictably from small groups of forward thinkers before they diffuse into society at large. As such, influencers, viral marketing and endorsement become superior to merit and intrinsic values. To put it simply, society was shifting and values such as appearance, immediate pleasure and riches were taking the upper hand. Of course in such a context branding and marketing came to dominate our perceptions.
In addition, the end of manual labour (following 100 years later the disappearance of agricultural work), and the suppression of social structure surrounding it (owners, proletariat, liberals) led to a deterioration of sense of belonging. This is still today visible and actual in areas, which haven't recovered from the 'desindustrialisation'. Social interactions are consequently less and less codified (no more is hard work a value) and more and more dictated by openly fake ostentatious behaviour. People have been confronted with some form of crisis of identity. In rejection to the fakeness, youth have turned to stylised violent expressions of themselves inspired by the Punks a decade earlier: jackass, graffiti, Fight Club, raving (indistinct masses moving to unified beats with no leader or social organisation, on drugs which suppress social awkwardness and barriers) are just examples of this mediatique counter culture. It is in that context that the yBa have rised and changed art.
Below the key artists of the movement:
Damien Hirst
This piece is what made the yBa (a bunch of friends from Goldsmoth art school). This was the first peace, which was bought by Saatchi. A bit of back ground on Saatchi...Saatchi is the co-founder of Saatchi-Saatchi, the largest advertising agency in the world. They were successful at marketing cigarettes, and getting Margaret Thatcher into office.
Damien Hirst who was very entrepreneurial and dynamic in the promotion of his work organised several shows and exhibitions. One of the most successful ones is Freeze, which he started in 1988 and which is now one of the world most important fairs for contemporary art. It is at one of these shows that Charles Saatchi, which was and still is an influential collector, discovered his work and started buying loads of it!
Marc Quinn
Quinn has used blood, ice and faeces to make sculptures; his work sometimes refers to scientific developments. Quinn’s oeuvre displays a preoccupation with the mutability of the body and the dualisms that define human life: spiritual and physical, surface and depth, cerebral and sexual.
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| Planet (2008) |
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| Waiting for Godot |
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| Siren |
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| Sky (2006) Human Placenta, umbilical cord, stainless steelm perspex and refrigeration equipment (205 x 65 x 65 cm) |
His White Cube profile describes:
He regards art as a concrete philosophy and his motif world explores the major issues of life and death, gender and transformation, identity, and the icons of our contemporary world. Indeed, Kate Moss doing yoga poses in solid gold statue is exactly that! haha
Fiona Rae
The Timothy Taylor Gallery describes: Employing a battery of painterly marks, graphic signs and symbols, her paintings explore the profusion of our visual and material culture and take us on an exhilarating ride through the possibilities of paint. The paintings seem to suggest the seductions, contradictions and disappointments of contemporary life and culture.
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| Who is peeping there? - 152.4x127cm |
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