Damien Hirst and others
Freeze
1988
Freeze was an art exhibition by 16 Goldsmith College of Arts students at the surrey docks in London and resembled the look of Charles Saatchi's gallert at St. Johns Woods. It was orchestrated by Damien Hirst but had other artists such as Fiona Rae, Stephen Park, Gary Hume, Matt Collishaw, and Angus Fairhurst, just to name a few. With all these young inspiring artists joining together for an exhibition it influenced many well respected and well known artists to visit the exhibition which greatly contributed to its success.
Many known works were first displayed there such as Matt Callishaws Bullet Hole which was a lightbox that showed a head being fractured by a bullet. This work was later made a symbol for the Young British Artist movement. What this art exhibition was all about can be summed up by a quote from Craig-Martin,'People have said that Freeze was about making money,'but it wasn't. Nobody could have bought the spot painting... it was about being young, about being excited about what they were doing, and getting people to see their work."
This exhibition has been seen as a career maker for many of the artists that took part in it, all of the artists except for one, Stephen Adamson, has seen a big boost in popularity and sales. Most of the artist that took part in this event are now know as the YBA's or the Young British Artists, what they did for art culturally and socially can be summed up by Matthew Collins after the YBA's show Brilliant, Nobody can quite sum up what they stand for. The advance publicity 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. In reality of course they are highly sophisticated formalists who desperately, and quite rightly, want to show in pristine white spaces like the Tate Gallery and the Walker Art Centre."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/YBA
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freeze_(exhibition)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2008/jun/01/art
http://en.allexperts.com/e/f/fr/freeze_(exhibition).htm
