Young British Artists

The Young British Artists, or YBAs—also referred to as Brit artists and Britart—is the name given to a loose group of visual artists who first began to exhibit together in London, in 1988. Many of the artists graduated from the BA Fine Art course at Goldsmiths, in the late 1980s.

The scene began around a series of artist-led exhibitions held in warehouses and factories, beginning in 1988 with the Damien Hirst-led Freeze and, in 1990, East Country Yard Show and Modern Medicine.

They are noted for "shock tactics", use of throwaway materials, wild-living, and an attitude "both oppositional and entrepreneurial". They achieved considerable media coverage and dominated British art during the 1990s—international survey shows in the mid-1990s included Brilliant! and Sensation.

Many of the artists were initially supported and collected by Charles Saatchi. Leading artists of the group include Damien Hirst and Tracey Emin. Key works include Hirst's The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living, a shark preserved in formaldehyde in a vitrine, and Emin's My Bed, a dishevelled double bed surrounded by detritus.

The first use of the term "young British artists" was by Michael Corris in ArtForum, May 1992, although Saatchi entitled his exhibition as "Young British Artists I" already in March 1992. The acronym term "YBA" (or "yBa") was not coined until 1996 (in Art Monthly magazine). It has become a historic term, as most of the YBAs were born in the mid-1960s.

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