British contemporary art Essay

British contemporary art is the art that developed in the late 20th century and early 21st century in Britain. It was this time when there came a kind of rejection for ‘modern art’ and the force and dynamism of ‘abstract expressionism’ reduced. At the end of 1950s loose movements of early contemporary art developed ‘Pop art’ that emerged formerly in England and started with the exhibition of ‘This Is Tomorrow’. The sixties art scene saw David Hockney, Peter Blake and Richard Hamilton during this time. Pop art’ can be characterized by descriptions of common places that were placed in new artistic ontexts, optical flickering of the international pop art movement were seen in the paintings of some artists and various other varieties in the work of numerous artists were appreciated. The styles that were diminished were put under the umbrella term of ‘postmodernism’. The development of new historicism, ironic and detached, which generated a number of artistic â€Å"neonism†, marked the commencement of a new era in art. The Young British Artists movement in 1990s with the version of conceptual art that featured installations often achieved international recognition. Many new artists simultaneously tirred up and challenged history of art and gave a new definition to art that it is any work of art is an entity, which in itself is self-sufficient. The new art seemed to be sometimes detached with social consciousness and concentrated on issue driven themes and minorities like gay, feminism etc. Another trend that is being seen in numerous works of art is the concept driven by the use of photography and language as the substance. Further contemporary art movement includes digital art, which was initiated in 1970s but became prevalent with the beginning of 21st century. The digital artists make use of software and sophisticated computers along with video equipments and create an extremely different work of art. Damien Hirst, internationally renowned and leader of â€Å"Young British Artists† dominated the art world in Britain especially during 1990s. The central theme of Hirst’s work is ‘death’ and his famous work was a series of dead animals preserved in formaldehyde. â€Å"The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living† is a tiger shark dipped in formaldehyde in a vitrine and is of 14-feet, the sale of which made him world’s second highest expensive living artist. He is well known for his ‘spin paintings’ and ‘spot paintings’. When considering international presentation his first major one was â€Å"Mother and Child Divided† in which a cow and a calf is cut into pieces and displayed in a series of split vitrines. Damien Hirst is considered as the second most famous living British artist after David Hockney. He was born in 1965 in Bristol and was brought up by his mother and stepfather. Before going to college he did a basic course in Leeds School of Art and then moved to London in 1986 and graduated in 1989 at Goldsmith College in BA Fine Art course. During his student life he held an exhibition â€Å"Freeze† in Docklands warehouse for which he himself conceived the idea, organized it as well as promoted it too. This exhibition commenced his career along with many other young British artists. In this Mishra 3 show several of Damien’s art pieces were exhibited along with the works of his 16 fellow students of Goldsmith College. It can be said that this self-promoting exhibition gave way to starting â€Å"Young British Artists† movement. Ex-Thatcher ad-man, Charles Saatchi got impressed by his works and displayed some of his works in the first â€Å"Charles Saatchi’s Young British Artists† show. Saatchi even bought â€Å"A Thousand Years†, a piece of Damien in 1990 and since then he has created a lot of pieces and has been admired by collectors as well as curators and his works are considered extraordinarily provocative. In 1991, he filled an art gallery with live tropical butterflies and presented an installation named â€Å"In and Out of Love†. â€Å"The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Minds of Someone Living†, a piece that made him the second highest expensive living artist, was commissioned for about US$32,000 in 1992. This made Damien a media icon and since then media and public both started to mitate, praise and also criticize him. The Young British Artists of Damien’s generation is completely different from their preceding generation and are well known for their entrepreneurial spirit, independence and media savvy. Most of them are self-promoters and get sponsored privately. They did not depend on government agencies to discover their talent and then present them as was done earlier but instead they displayed their talent with the help of private sponsors who readily organized exhibitions for them. Hirst tried to develop exploration of mortality as the central theme of his artworks and extended it with humor, ynamism, novelty and enthusiasm. His â€Å"The Natural History† series, which is quite well known among his admirers, included dead animals presented, as momento mori as an irony on natural history. This series disclose the contemplation of his approach and the work of art has a visual power which is not possible to be described in words. Without having the experience of the series one cannot imagine or envisage it. If Hirst’s productions were to be categorized, it would be done in three types and they are paintings, the glass tank pieces and cabinet sculptures. Considering his paintings hat are divided into spot paintings and spin paintings. Spot paintings can be described as those paintings that are randomly organized and the canvases are color-spotted and their titles refer to pharmaceutical chemicals. Spin paintings are individually created with the help of centrifugal force and is literary done on a spinning table. His glass tank sculptures include dead animals or animals cut into pieces like cows, shark or sheep that are kept in formaldehyde perched in death. Hirst’s cabinet sculptures include collection of bottles of pills or surgical tools that are on highly arranged shelves. Damien Hirst was very quick in sharing his ideas and interest areas and very easily conveyed his message. His pieces of art were most simple but at the same time had complex ideas knitted along. Along with his paintings he expanded ‘hobby’-art technique that tried to attract audience towards the beauty and extreme energy of haphazard paintings. Hirst’s piece of art in which a single fish is suspended in formaldehyde was admired as a symbol of advanced art and people came to know that how ordinary things placed in an artistic manner could attract and look beautiful. Some of Hirst’s pieces of art ike â€Å"Alone Yet Together† which included a cabinet that held 100 small fishes in small tanks of formaldehyde and â€Å"Loss of Memory is Worse than Death† which included a steel cage that contained several vitrines with surgical mask, syringe and gloves were auctioned but failed to sell. Damien puts the blame on media that it makes the public believe the flawed explanations from art critics and public get misguided and believe in them without even actually viewing the artwork. Damien is of the opinion that people understand as well as appreciate artwork even if they don’t possess an art degree because nyone has the basic knowledge of visual background, which makes them understand complex advertisements too. It is only because people are not exposed to artworks frequently they are unable to express or appreciate it. Damien now insists that his spin paintings should be provided with spinning equipment on the wall so that there is no confusion about the upper side of the painting. As far his spot paintings are concerned they have become an icon of Hirst’s artwork. Usually it is seen that Damien’s work have recurring themes in a different way and one of is themes is â€Å" cigarettes† and the best example is his piece of work, â€Å"Party Time†. Damien considers smoking as a â€Å"theoretical suicide† and he stated, â€Å"The concept of a slow suicide through smoking is a really great idea, a powerful thing to do†. One more theme that is seen quite common in Hirst’s art is medical equipment and he had been infatuated and he wants people to believe in art just as they believe in medicine. The flood of ideas and images that Damien’s artwork creates leaves admirers of art amazed, fascinated and also threatened. One of the themes in Damien’s paintings is ‘emptiness’ like in ‘He Tried to Internalize Everything’ and ‘The Acquired Inability to Escape’ he displays a small cage like structure in which objects like desk, chair and other things usually needed for human interaction are seen covered with glass but there is human presence lacking. The feeling or intension of the artists behind these works can only be experienced and there is no question of solving any problem in this piece of art. Since the things are inside a glass cage the feeling seems to be suffocating and frustrating. Damien has fascination for glass because even though it is solid and dangerous it is transparent. It allows anyone to see everything but you cannot touch anything kept inside it. Damien’s lots of tank pieces are with animals in formaldehyde where they cannot go through any natural process and he finds it quite difficult to preserve them completely. He believes that the idea behind any creation is more important than the actual piece that has been used for the purpose. He wants his creative pieces to last till his lifetime and he is not much bothered about them after it. These animals are most famous among his works and at the same time they have been quite controversial too. He was awarded the Turner Prize for ‘Mother and Child, Divided’ and Damien says, â€Å"I want people feel like burgers. I chose a cow because it was banal. It’s just nothing. It doesn’t mean anything. What is the difference between a cow and a burger? Not a lot†¦ I want people to look at cows and feel ‘Oh My God’, so then in turn, it makes them feel like burgers†. Damien wants to make people look at ordinary things in a different way and he believes that they are frightening. He wants people to question because one thing that is useful in one way can be just opposite the other and this change of function is what makes things frightening. He says that the same is with art. He has received many letters in which people have protested, threatened or laid moral objections to the use of animals in Damien’s artwork. But Damien himself is very sympathetic about animals and most of his animals are bought from slaughterhouses or have died their natural death. Damien had quite a lot of problem convincing concerned authority his pieces of art were to be considered art and not food, as he was not allowed to take his artwork for an exhibition in United States. Again in August 1995 Damien was banned to exhibit his artwork â€Å"Two Fucking, Two Watching† which included dead cows fucking without formaldehyde. The objection was that the methane gas would explode the glass and would probably prompt vomiting among the visitors. Damien’s art installation that got changed into restaurant, which was followed to sale very shortly, is just an example that Damien is simply interested in art rather than conventional media. He is a versatile artist and his art include paintings, video, sculptures and every other media in between them. He has also designed cover art for albums, directed a music video and even was part of an art and film exhibition in 1996 at the  Hayward Gallery with his short film â€Å"Hanging Around†. He included many of his pop star friends from London to provide music for this film. In 1998 he became a part of a pop group and recorded two singles. Damien has also worked on quite a few side projects. Damien’s work has been admired and exhibited in Britain, the USA, Korea, Australia and many other countries in Europe. His works are included in public museums and galleries as well as in lots of private collections too. He lives with his sons Connor and Cassius and his girlfriend Maia Norman in Devon and works at his home.