Walker, John A.

London; Sterling, Virginia: Pluto Press. 1999, 261 pp. 51 illus. ISBN: 0-7453-1354-X; 0-7453-1359-0

Surveys the most prominent cases of contemporary art that have scandalized society in Britain during the period from 1949 to the late 1990s. The author discusses the paintings, sculptures, and installations of leading and less well-known British, American and European artists. He charts the controversy surrounding each incident, considers the arguments for and against each work of art, and notes the conclusions reached at the time. Works considered include an abstract action painting created using a bicycle by William Green, Auto-Destructive art by Gustav Metzger, the ecological installation Portable Fish Farm by Newton Harrison, a sculpture by Barry Flanagan, vandalized by the public, Conceptual art by Michael Craig-Martin, Carl Andre's brick installation, examples of feminist and performance art, the garden of Ian Hamilton Finlay, rape scenes by Sue Coe and erotic art by Allen Jones, work by Rick Gibson using human and animal remains, the work of the K Foundation (Jimmy Cauty and Bill Drummond), images of murder victims and murderers by Jamie Wagg and Marcus Harvey, and Antony Gormley's public outdoor sculpture, Angel of the North.

Wallinger, Mark

Art Monthly (U.K.), no. 218, July-Aug. 1998, pp. 1-4, 3 illus.

The British artist Mark Wallinger discusses the impossibility of creating genuinely anti-establishment art. He examines how works which are intended to be subversive can actually support the status quo, with reference to the film If... by Lindsay Anderson, noting that the film loses its satirical edge if the viewer knows that Anderson received permission from his old public school to make the film on its premises. He considers the position within the establishment of institutions such as the Tate Gallery and the Royal Academy of Arts in London, questioning the Academy's role in the controversy over Marcus Harvey's portrait of Myra Hindley, and discusses how the contemporary desire for media recognition and celebrity status has affected artists.

Hare, Bill

Contemporary Visual Arts (U.K.), no. 18, 1998, pp. 50-5, 7 illus. (6 colour)

With reference to art included in the exhibitions Sensation held at the Royal Academy in London (see ABM 28 06299 for abstract of book accompanying the exhibition) and Francis Bacon: the Human Body at the Hayward Gallery, London (see ABM 29 06822 for abstract), the author considers the work of young British artists within a tradition of the use of the shocking and the horrible in art that can be traced back to the 16th century in Europe. Surveying the work included in Sensation, he identifies a revived interest on the part of young British artists including Jake and Dinos Chapman and Damien Hirst in the sublime; however, he suggests that their work falls short of the truly horrific because it does not threaten its audience. He cites as an exception Marcus Harvey's portrait of Myra Hindley Myra (1995), a work he finds forceful and quasi-religious in its allusion to human evil. He contrasts typical work by the young British artists shown in Sensation with the work of Francis Bacon, who, he explains, intended his work, not as a depiction of the violence that might befall humans, but as an act of violence itself, wreaking a physical effect on its audience, and in addition, sought to undermine the accepted conventions of picture-making. The author concludes that, unlike the art of the young British artists, Bacon's work genuinely terrifies.

Dunant, Sarah

Like (Australia), no. 5, Summer 1997-Autumn 1998, pp. 6-7

Discusses Marcus Harvey's controversial portrait of the murderer Myra Hindley, exhibited as part of the Sensation: Young British Artists from the Saatchi Collection exhibition at the Royal Academy in London (see ABM 28 06299 for abstract of book accompanying the exhibition). The author describes the work, an enlarged image of the black and white photograph of Hindley taken in police custody in 1963, made up of numerous children's handprints, notes its reference to Andy Warhol's photographs, suggests the images it conjures up, and contemplates what emotions it evokes. She raises the current issue of Hindley's apparent reform during her 30-year incarceration, and the predominant public opinion against her release, and argues that the public outcry at the work was superfluous since the work in itself already promotes antagonism towards its subject. To have been really sensational, the author concludes, the work would have had to counter public opinion and raise the issue of Hindley's release.