Battle of British art shows

In the red corner is British Art Show 7. In the blue corner is Saatchi’s Newspeak II. With both shows opening within just a few days of each other, it’s a contemporary art face-off. Which of the contenders will emerge triumphant?

British Art Show 7 is organised by Hayward Touring Exhibitions and runs every five years. Since it first appeared in 1979, its various different incarnations have been visited by more than 1.1 million people around the UK. Over the years it has showcased the work of Lucien Freud, Gilbert and George, Anish Kapoor, Anthony Gormley, Damien Hirst, Paula Rego, Tracey Emin, Sam Taylor-Wood and Grayson Perry. Quite a track record.

Tom Morton, co-curator of this year’s show, believes that the fact that the British Art Show is a touring exhibition is absolutely fundamental to its identity.

“We’ve found it amazing that, speaking to the artists in the show this year, many of them saw the British Art Show in regional galleries growing up and it was one of the things that inspired them to become artists,” he says.

“There are amazing artists and galleries the length and breadth of the British Isles.” British Art Show curator Lisa Le Feuvre

His fellow co-curator, Lisa Le Feuvre, agrees: “For us it’s really important that the British Art Show does cover the whole of Britain, as Britain is an incredibly vibrant place for contemporary art.

“There are amazing artists and galleries the length and breadth of the British Isles. So it’s completely appropriate that the British Art Show covers these islands not only to reflect what’s happening but to bring to audiences the wealth of art being made in Britain today.”

Three galleries
British Art Show 7 opens in Nottingham, where it’s spread over three galleries: the recently-opened Nottingham Contemporary and New Art Exchange and another venue of more historical importance, Nottingham Castle – the first municipal art gallery in Britain outside London.

The show will later move on to London, Glasgow and Plymouth. It features the work of 39 artists working in a variety of different media. For the first time, much of their work has been specially commissioned for the exhibition and has never been seen before.

And in another first, British Art Show 7 is squaring up to the might of Charles Saatchi.

Saatchi’s latest
A private collector regularly cited as the most influential man in British contemporary art, Saatchi is the brains behind Sensation, the notorious 1997 show which helped launched the careers of Tracey Emin, Damien Hirst and Jake and Dinos Chapman and came to define a whole generation of artists – the YBAs. Since then, his endorsement of an artist’s work has been enough to launch their career into the stratosphere. Again, quite a track record.

Saatchi hasn’t attempted to launch another exhibition of the scale of Sensation until very recently. Opening his latest gallery just off London’s King’s Road in 2008 proved the nudge that was needed and earlier this year he gave us the first instalment of Newspeak, a museum-scale survey of emergent British contemporary art. And tomorrow, the second instalment will open to the public.

“(Saatchi’s) exhibition forms a portrait and shows how interesting and rich British art is at the moment.” Art writer Patricia Ellis

Famously, Saatchi doesn’t appear or speak in public, but on this occasion he was represented at the show’s press launch by art writer Patricia Ellis.
Ellis told us: “I think that this show’s a little bit different from the YBA show 15 years ago in the sense that they didn’t all go to school together and there’s more of a mixture of age groups. And they have a very diverse set of backgrounds and the way that they make things and think about things is different.

“But the exhibition forms a portrait and shows how interesting and rich British art is at the moment, how diverse it is and how there really is something for everyone.”

Diversity
The fact that of the more than 100 artists featured in both shows there’s a crossover of only six proves Ellis’s point about the diversity of Britain’s art world. It also hints at the sheer quantity of work being produced in the UK. On the evidence of both exhibitions, no-one could argue that that British contemporary art is in anything other than rude health.

The controversy arises from both shows’ claims to provide a “survey” of where British art is right now. With such a small crossover of artists, it seems that both surveys are coming up with different conclusions. Which bring us back to where we started – a contemporary art face-off.

In one corner, Newspeak II. In the other, British Art Show 7.

Let the fighting begin.