CREAM and the Art of Art Collecting

Curating the Cream exhibition was a unique process in which private art collectors played an important role. Collecting contemporary art is increasingly common in Finland, and this opens new opportunities for Kiasma. It also offers a rare opportunity to peek into the collections of Finnish art collectors.

The central theme of Cream is Young British Artists, or YBA, a group that dominated British art in the 1990s, with Damien Hirst as their spearhead. Most of the works on exhibit are on loan from Finnish private collections, which were found to contain plenty of really interesting British art. The collectors’ contribution to the exhibition is incontestable.

BRITISH ART COLLECTOR CHARLES SAATCHI

Collectors also played a vital role in the formation of the YBA phenomenon. In fact, without the contribution of one particular British art collector, Charles Saatchi, the very concept of Young British Artists might be unknown, at least in its present magnitude. The founder of the famous advertising agency Saatchi & Saatchi, as well as a gallerist, Charles Saatchi systematically collected work by young British artists, starting with the legendary 1988 show Freeze. He continued to buy their work throughout the 1990s in an unprecedented volume and intensity. Saatchi not only acquired individual works: he could buy up entire shows. ”Charles Saatchi buys artworks like Imelda Marcos bought shoes,” ran a headline in The Independent in 1996.

Perhaps the most memorable example of Saatchi’s contribution to the development of the YBA phenomenon was his £50,000 commission from Damien Hirst in 1991 for creating a work that has sometimes been called the Mona Lisa of contemporary art, The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living. The work consisted of a tiger shark submerged in a tank with 16,000 litres of formaldehyde. The work created an uproar; The Sun declared it ”£50,000 for Fish Without Chips”. Contemporary art became the talk of the day. It amazed, horrified and amused the public, but it also questioned the morality and justification of art, and ultimately also the content of art.

The work heralded the triumph of the YBA group. There were exhibitions galore, trade was booming and there was always a party going on somewhere. People wanted to hobnob with the new cream of British art, and their exploits and personal lives were followed closely. Unprecedented scandals accompanied Saatchi’s 1997 exhibition Sensation, which began its world tour at the prestigious London Royal Academy.

THE HOLY TRINITY

In addition to Saatchi, another important figure in the launching of YBA was Jay Jopling, founder of the White Cube gallery in London. Talented and well connected, Jopling befriended Damien Hirst when the latter was still a student at Goldsmith. Jopling organised early exhibitions of YBAs in old warehouses in the London Docklands. It is said that, besides Saatchi, Jopling was the one who facilitated Damien Hirst’s rise into contemporary art superstardom.

As Gregor Muir writes in his book Lucky Kunst, Damien Hirst, Charles Saatchi and Jay Jopling made up the Holy Trinity of the artist, the dealer and the collector. All that was needed on top of that was the hungry media, which the YBAs fed skilfully with scandals, sex and taboos.

VALUES OF ART

Creating uproar in the media and manipulating the art market became a kind of art in itself, one that has nowhere culminated better than in the person and work of Damien Hirst. It is difficult to find an article about Hirst that does not also mention money. Yet his works provoke thoughts about much more than just the price of art; they pose questions about the connections between art, science and popular culture, about human vulnerability, love and death, and often do so in a way that is visually quite unforgettable.

The position of Hirst among the YBAs, just like the status of the YBA group in the British art world as a whole, has been both exaggerated and branding. Hirst’s colleagues and fellow students who participated in the first Freeze exhibition and other early events, will for the rest of their days be known as the legendary Young British Artists.

MORE THAN A PHENOMENON

The Young British Artists are referred to as a uniform group, although their art had great variety. What unites them is not any single style, medium or content, but instead a new kind of attitude towards the practice of art. They began devising new strategies in the art world. They refused to accept a situation where exhibitions were only granted to a select few. They began organising exhibitions themselves, getting their own sponsors, networking with collectors and managing their own publicity.

It is now more than 20 years since the Freeze show, but YBA remains an unparalleled phenomenon in contemporary art. Cream in Kiasma touches upon the story of the Young British Artists, but also shows a broader view of the work of the generation of artists who had their breakthrough in the 1990s in London. The show includes more recent works by the YBAs that have made their way into Finnish art collections. The theme of the exhibition thus expands to cover art collecting and the internationality of the art market. It offers a rare opportunity to peek into the homes of Finnish art collectors, the choices they have made, the stories they have scripted.

Arja Miller