Freeze is the title of an art exhibition that took place in July 1988 in an empty London Port Authority building (the old fire station) at Surrey Docks in London Docklands. [1] Its main organiser was Damien Hirst. It was significant in the subsequent development of the Young British Artists.
Freeze was orchestrated by Damien Hirst, who was then a student at Goldsmiths College of Art. He was assisted by Luigi Scalera, a young architecture graduate working for the London Docklands Development Corporation, who identified and made available the derelict building for the exhibition together with modest funding for painting the interior. [1] [2] Hirst and his collaborators intentionally imitated the look of Charles Saatchi's first gallery in St John's Wood that had opened a few years earlier.[ citation needed ] Saatchi, an art collector, attended Freeze and purchased a piece of art by Mat Collishaw. Michael Craig-Martin, a tutor at Goldsmiths Art College, [1] used his influence in the London art world to convince Norman Rosenthal and Nicholas Serota to visit the exhibition.
A show of work by Angus Fairhurst in February 1988 was the precursor to Freeze. [3] Fairhurst, along with other students from Goldsmiths College of Art, were instrumental in organizing Freeze. [1] It was there that the work of the Young British Artists caught the attention of the collector Charles Saatchi. [2]
The catalogue for Freeze had surprisingly high production values for a student exhibition.[ citation needed ] It was designed by Tony Arefin and included an essay by art critic Ian Jeffrey. The catalogue was funded by the property developers Olympia and York. The title of the show came from the catalogue's description of Mat Collishaw's macro photograph Bullet Hole which showed a gunshot wound to a human head (taken from a pathology textbook).
In 2007, Michael Craig-Martin said in an interview with Brian Sherwin:
The exhibition was sponsored by the London Docklands Development Corporation and Olympia and York.
There was one contemporary review of the original exhibition written by Sacha Craddock, which appeared in The Guardian . [5]
The success inspired a second exhibition several months later, Freeze 2, featuring some artists from the first exhibition and some new faces from other London art schools. The BBC filmed the exhibition and interviewed some contributors.
Freeze influenced a group of artists later to be identified as the Young British Artists (YBAs—often written yBas). The actual list of members in this art group remained fluid from project to project. [1]
Two younger artists turned down the chance to be in the exhibition. Dominic Denis was listed in catalogue but did not show work. The 16 students who did exhibit at Freeze were:
The Young British Artists, or YBAs—also referred to as Brit artists and Britart—is a loose group of visual artists who first began to exhibit together in London in 1988. Many of the YBA artists graduated from the BA Fine Art course at Goldsmiths, in the late 1980s, whereas some from the group had trained at Royal College of Art.
Damien Steven Hirst is an English artist and art collector. He is one of the Young British Artists (YBAs) who dominated the art scene in the UK during the 1990s. He is reportedly the United Kingdom's richest living artist, with his wealth estimated at US$384 million in the 2020 Sunday Times Rich List. During the 1990s his career was closely linked with the collector Charles Saatchi, but increasing frictions came to a head in 2003 and the relationship ended.
The Saatchi Gallery is a London gallery for contemporary art and an independent charity opened by Charles Saatchi in 1985. Exhibitions which drew upon the collection of Charles Saatchi, starting with US artists and minimalism, moving to the Damien Hirst-led Young British Artists, followed by shows purely of painting, led to Saatchi Gallery becoming a recognised authority in contemporary art globally. It has occupied different premises, first in North London, then the South Bank by the River Thames, and finally in Chelsea, Duke of York's HQ, its current location. In 2019 Saatchi Gallery became a registered charity and began a new chapter in its history. Recent exhibitions include the major solo exhibition of the artist JR, JR: Chronicles, and London Grads Now in September 2019 lending the gallery spaces to graduates from leading fine art schools who experienced the cancellation of physical degree shows due to the pandemic.
Marcus Harvey is an English artist and painter, one of the Young British Artists (YBAs).
Sarah Lucas is an English artist. She is part of the generation of Young British Artists who emerged in 1988. Her works frequently employ visual puns and bawdy humour by incorporating photography, sculpture, collage and found objects.
Matthew "Mat" Collishaw Hon. FRPS is a contemporary British artist based in London.
Angus Fairhurst was an English artist working in installation, photography and video. He was one of the Young British Artists (YBAs).
Jon Thompson was an artist, curator and academic known for his involvement in the development of the YBA artist generation.
Sensation was an exhibition of the collection of contemporary art owned by Charles Saatchi, including many works by Young British Artists (YBAs), which first took place 18 September – 28 December 1997 at the Royal Academy of Arts in London. The exhibition later toured to the Hamburger Bahnhof in Berlin and the Brooklyn Museum in New York City. A proposed showing at the National Gallery of Australia was cancelled when the gallery's director decided the exhibition was "too close to the market."
Carl Freedman is the founder of Carl Freedman Gallery. He previously worked as a writer and a curator.
The South London Gallery, founded 1891, is a public-funded gallery of contemporary art in Camberwell, London. Until 1992, it was known as the South London Art Gallery, and nowadays the acronym SLG is often used. Margot Heller became its director in 2001.
Abigail Lane is an English artist who works in photography, wax casting, printing and sound. Lane was one of the exhibitors in the 1988 Damien Hirst-led Freeze exhibition—a mixed show of art which was significant in the development of the later-to-be YBA scene of art.
Adrian Searle is an art critic for The Guardian, and has been writing for the paper since 1996. Previously he was a painter.
Henry Bond, FHEA is an English writer, photographer, and visual artist. In his Lacan at the Scene (2009), Bond made contributions to theoretical psychoanalysis and forensics.
Brilliant! was a group exhibition of contemporary art held at the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, USA between 22 October 1995 and 7 January 1996. It traveled to the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, Texas, where it was on view between 17 February and 14 April 1996.
East Country Yard Show was an exhibition of contemporary art organized by Henry Bond and Sarah Lucas. It was on view between 31 May—22 June 1990. The exhibition was a "seminal" London group show which was significant in the subsequent development of the Young British Artists.
Bullet Hole is the title of a 1988 artwork by British artist Mat Collishaw. Despite the title, the work is a reproduction of an ice pick wound to the head, appropriated from a pathology manual and blown up over an interlocking grid of fifteen separate framed images that make up one single work. It first went on show in the exhibition Freeze, organized by Damien Hirst.
Modern Medicine was the title of a group exhibition of contemporary art on display in "Building One"—one of the buildings comprising the former Peek Frean biscuit factory—in Bermondsey, London, in 1990. The exhibition was organized or "curated" by Billee Sellman, Damien Hirst and Carl Freedman. The exhibition included the first showing of Damien Hirst's sculpture "One Thousand Years". It was one of several warehouse exhibitions from which the YBA art scene developed—along with Freeze and East Country Yard.
Sacha Craddock is an independent art critic, writer and curator based in London. Craddock is co-founder of Artschool Palestine, co-founder or the Contemporary Art Award and council member of the Abbey Awards in Painting at the British School at Rome, Trustee of the Shelagh Cluett Trust, and President of the International Association of Art Critics AICA UK. She was chair of the Board of New Contemporaries and selection process from 1996 until December 2021.
Nick Fudge is a British painter, sculptor, and digital artist.
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