Encountaring DAMIEN HIRST Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Encountaring DAMIEN HIRST - Essay Example This group of artists has been very controversial around the world, but especially in England where they came to prominence in the early 1990s. Almost all of them attended Goldsmiths College in London and were bought in the early stages of their career by the rich collector Charles Saatchi. Tracey Emin is a good example. Her most famous installation piece is called The Bed and takes the form of a double bed around which are many personal objects from her life. Another pair of London conceptual artists are the Chapman brothers, Jake and Dinos, who focus a lot of attention on torture and suffering in their work, going so far as to cast life size sculptures based on images from Goya’s Disasters of War. These artists all have in common the desire to shock and sensationalize and tackle subjects that are rarely considered to be art. The critic Matthew Collings had this to say about these London-based conceptual artists: Nobody can quite sum up what they stand for. The advance public ity of Brilliant! presents them as cheeky cockneys and punk rockers oppressed by the Thatcher junta, dodging IRA bombs, living in squats, and making rough and ready art that screams with rage and isn't intended for pristine white gallery space, but for rough and ready warehouse spaces in London's cockney East End. But no conceptual artist has been as controversial as the London artist Damien Hirst, who was born in 1965. In the beginning, while still a student at Goldsmiths, he helped to organize and exhibit art by other London YBAs.