Sarah Kent
Encyclopedia
Sarah Kent is a British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 art critic, formerly the art editor of the weekly London 'what's on' guide Time Out. She was an early supporter of the Young British Artists
Young British Artists
Young British Artists or YBAs is the name given to a loose group of visual artists who first began to exhibit together in London, in 1988...

 in general, and Tracey Emin
Tracey Emin
Tracey Karima Emin RA is a British artist of English and Turkish Cypriot origin. She is part of the group known as Britartists or YBAs ....

 in particular, helping her to get early exposure. This has led to polarised reactions of praise and opposition for Kent. She adopts a feminist stance and has stated her position to be that of "a spokesperson, especially for women artists, in a country that is essentially hostile to contemporary art."

Career

Sarah Kent studied painting at the Slade School of Art and worked as an artist until 1977. She then became Exhibitions Director at the Institute of Contemporary Arts
Institute of Contemporary Arts
The Institute of Contemporary Arts is an artistic and cultural centre on The Mall in London, just off Trafalgar Square. It is located within Nash House, part of Carlton House Terrace, near the Duke of York Steps and Admiralty Arch...

 (ICA) for two years, and also started writing for Time Out. At the ICA she staged exhibitions by Andy Warhol
Andy Warhol
Andrew Warhola , known as Andy Warhol, was an American painter, printmaker, and filmmaker who was a leading figure in the visual art movement known as pop art...

, Allen Jones
Allen Jones (sculptor)
Allen Jones RA is a British pop artist, best known for his sculptures. He lives and works in London.Jones was born in Southampton and from 1955 to 1961 studied at the Hornsey College of Art...

 and Christo, as well as feminist artist Alexis Hunter
Alexis Hunter
Alexis Hunter is a contemporary New Zealand painter and photographer, who uses feminist theory in her work. She lives in London. Alexis Hunter is also a member of Stuckism.-Life and career:...

. Another show was of satirical art, Berlin a Critical View: Ugly Realism. Her own work changed from painting to photography, primarily of male nudes.

She became art editor of Time Out, for which she wrote reviews. She is now a well-known figure in the arts in London, and has appeared on radio and TV shows. She also works in a freelance capacity as an editor and critic, and has provided essays, catalogues and books for the Saatchi Gallery
Saatchi Gallery
The Saatchi Gallery is a London gallery for contemporary art, opened by Charles Saatchi in 1985 in order to exhibit his collection to the public. It has occupied different premises, first in North London, then the South Bank by the River Thames and currently in Chelsea. Saatchi's collection, and...

 and White Cube
White Cube
White Cube is a contemporary art gallery designed by MRJ Rundell & Associates in Hoxton Square in the East End of London Mason's Yard, in central London and White Cube Bermondsey in South East London...

 gallery. She is the editor of Shark-Infested Waters: The Saatchi Collection of British Art in the 90s (Zwemmer, 1994).

She was an early advocate for the Young British Artists
Young British Artists
Young British Artists or YBAs is the name given to a loose group of visual artists who first began to exhibit together in London, in 1988...

 (YBAs), also known as Britart, and a strong supporter of Tracey Emin
Tracey Emin
Tracey Karima Emin RA is a British artist of English and Turkish Cypriot origin. She is part of the group known as Britartists or YBAs ....

, helping to get her early exposure. Kent and Matthew Collings
Matthew Collings
-Life and career:In one of his books on art, Collings states that, in his early teenage years, he ran away to Canada. This act was preceded by a period of hanging around in a house in Oakley Street, Chelsea, whose residents included members of various rock bands including Mighty Baby and Family...

 have been described as "the parents of the popularization process having audiences approaching half a million each" of "the explosion of art into mainstream culture in nineties London."

The connection with the YBAs has inevitably attracted criticism similar to that which is directed at the artists:
Many writers involved in the post-modern world deal in a flip and ironic way with both theory and criticism, for example, Jean Baudrillard or the London-based critic and reviewer, Sarah Kent, so that the line between serious theory and the entertainment industry are blurred. I would define the ironic as a refusal to state a sincere political or ethical stance, or if in stating a stance, to continually undermine this, or to change it as suits. It is the opposite of what used to be called 'engaged' or 'committed' or 'sincere'.


Another criticism is that Kent's freelance working for institutions, such as White Cube and the Saatchi Gallery, whose shows she also reviews in Time Out, is a conflict of interest.

Advocating Britart, she is on the opposite side of the fence from the traditionally-oriented critic, Brian Sewell
Brian Sewell
Brian Sewell is an English art critic and media personality. He writes for the London Evening Standard and is noted for artistic conservatism and his acerbic view of the Turner Prize and conceptual art...

. This had led to personal comments in the media. In 1995, when asked about a suitable Christmas present for him (he keeps dogs), she replied:
I'd like to give him a large tank of formaldehyde in which he can pickle his bitches

Eight years later Sewell commented in one of his articles, referring to a heart operation:
I have made several wills, the first as a young soldier, all of them the precautionary wills of those who do not think of death as immediately relevant. Even on the night before my rib-cage was sawn open and my heart re-plumbed I was prepared to make a joke and bequeathed my eyes to Sarah Kent, the gushing art critic of Time Out, who is not blind but cannot see.


She is also mentioned in the lyrics to The Turner Prize Song Art or Arse? - You be the judge, written and performed by Billy Childish
Billy Childish
Billy Childish is an English artist, painter, author, poet, photographer, film maker, singer and guitarist...

, on a Stuckists
Stuckism
Stuckism is an international art movement founded in 1999 by Billy Childish and Charles Thomson to promote figurative painting in opposition to conceptual art...

 CD:
Damien Hirst got his fish in a tank
some say it's art others think it's wank
Sarah Kent says he's doing quite well
you gotta make your art and you gotta sell


The reactions to her mirror the divisions in contemporary art in Britain, and she is praised as a pioneer by Louisa Buck
Louisa Buck
Louisa Buck is a British art critic and contemporary art correspondent for The Art Newspaper. She was a jurist for the 2005 Turner Prize.-Life:...

:
In 1992, she was a jurist on the Turner Prize panel chaired by (Sir) Nicholas Serota
Nicholas Serota
Sir Nicholas Andrew Serota is a British art curator. Serota was director of the Whitechapel Gallery, London, and The Museum of Modern Art, Oxford, before becoming director of the Tate, the United Kingdom's national gallery of modern and British art in 1988. He was awarded a knighthood in 1999. He...

. The other members were Marie-Claude Beaud, Director, Foundation Cartier pour l'art contemporain, Paris, Robert Hopper, Director, Henry Moore Sculpture Trust, and Howard Karshan. The winner was Grenville Davey
Grenville Davey
Grenville Davey is an English sculptor and winner of the 1992 Turner Prize.He is a professor of the University of East London school of Architecture and the Visual Arts...

, and the other nominees Damien Hirst
Damien Hirst
Damien Steven Hirst is an English artist, entrepreneur and art collector. He is the most prominent member of the group known as the Young British Artists , who dominated the art scene in Britain during the 1990s. He is internationally renowned, and is reportedly Britain's richest living artist,...

, David Tremlett
David Tremlett
David Tremlett is a Cornish sculptor, installation artist and photographer. He currently lives and works in Bovingdon, Hertfordshire, Great Britain.- Biography :...

 and Alison Wilding
Alison Wilding
Alison Wilding RA is an English sculptor.-Biography:Born in Blackburn in Lancashire, Wilding studied at the Nottingham College of Art, the Ravensbourne College of Art and Design in Chislehurst and, from 1970 to 1973, the Royal College of Art in London...

.

In October 2002, the art "insider" news site artrumour.com published a survey of the number of times different galleries had been reviewed in Time Out over the preceding two years. They divided this into “leagues” based on football leagues. Top of the list with the most reviews in the "Premier League" were:
White Cube
White Cube
White Cube is a contemporary art gallery designed by MRJ Rundell & Associates in Hoxton Square in the East End of London Mason's Yard, in central London and White Cube Bermondsey in South East London...

  26
Tate Gallery
Tate Gallery
The Tate is an institution that houses the United Kingdom's national collection of British Art, and International Modern and Contemporary Art...

 25
Barbican
Barbican
A barbican, from medieval Latin barbecana, signifying the "outer fortification of a city or castle," with cognates in the Romance languages A barbican, from medieval Latin barbecana, signifying the "outer fortification of a city or castle," with cognates in the Romance languages A barbican, from...

  14
Royal Academy
Royal Academy
The Royal Academy of Arts is an art institution based in Burlington House on Piccadilly, London. The Royal Academy of Arts has a unique position in being an independent, privately funded institution led by eminent artists and architects whose purpose is to promote the creation, enjoyment and...

 14
Sadie Coles
Sadie Coles HQ
Sadie Coles HQ is contemporary art gallery in London, England, owned and directed by Sadie Coles.Sadie Coles first worked as a gallery director for Anthony d'Offay....

 14
Lisson Gallery
Lisson Gallery
The Lisson Gallery is a contemporary art gallery in Bell Street, Lisson Grove, London, founded by Nicholas Logsdail in 1967. The gallery represents such artists as Ai Weiwei, John Latham, Sol LeWitt, Robert Mangold, Jonathan Monk, Julian Opie, Richard Wentworth and Turner Prize winners Anish Kapoor...

 12
Photographers' Gallery
Photographers' Gallery
The Photographers' Gallery was founded in London in 1971, and was the first independent gallery in Britain that was devoted entirely to photography. Exhibitions in the gallery have included showcases of work by André Kertész, Danny Treacy, Taryn Simon, Ori Gersht, Cuny Janssen, and David King. The...

 12
National Portrait Gallery 12
ICA
Institute of Contemporary Arts
The Institute of Contemporary Arts is an artistic and cultural centre on The Mall in London, just off Trafalgar Square. It is located within Nash House, part of Carlton House Terrace, near the Duke of York Steps and Admiralty Arch...

  12
Anthony Wilkinson
Anthony Wilkinson
Anthony John Anstruther Wilkinson was an English barrister and amateur first-class cricketer.Wilkinson was born in Mount Oswald, County Durham, England, the 4th son of the Rev. Percival Spearman and Sophia Mary Anstruther. He was educated at Shrewsbury School and St John's College, Cambridge,...

 12
Stephen Friedman 12
Serpentine Gallery
Serpentine Gallery
The Serpentine Gallery is an art gallery in Kensington Gardens, Hyde Park, central London. It focuses on modern and contemporary art. The exhibitions, architecture, education and public programmes attract approximately 750,000 visitors a year...

  11
Mobile Home 10
Modern Art  10
Camden Arts Centre
Camden Arts Centre
Camden Arts Centre is a contemporary visual art gallery, dedicated to engaging living artists from across the world. Positioning the artist at the centre of the programme, Camden Arts Centre strives to involve the public in the ideas and work of today's artists.The exhibition and education...

  10
South London Gallery
South London Gallery
South London Gallery, founded 1891, often known by the acronym SLG, is a public-funded gallery of contemporary art in Camberwell, London - exhibiting artists included Alfredo Jaar, Ryan Gander and Chris Burden...

 10
National Gallery  10
Hayward Gallery
Hayward Gallery
The Hayward Gallery is an art gallery within the Southbank Centre, part of an area of major arts venues on the South Bank of the River Thames, in central London, England. It is sited adjacent to the other Southbank Centre buildings and also the Royal National Theatre and British Film Institute...

  10
Gagosian Gallery
Gagosian Gallery
Gagosian Gallery is a contemporary art gallery owned and directed by Larry Gagosian. There are currently eleven gallery spaces: three in New York; two in London; one in each of Beverly Hills, Rome, Athens, Paris, Geneva, Hong Kong and Moscow.-1980s:...

 10


The Saatchi Gallery is at the bottom of Division One with 6 entries, which is explained by the long length of the shows. Artrumour asked, "What the hell is Mobile Home doing in the Premier League? And what are Cabinet, Vilma Gold and Greengrassi doing slumming it in the Beazer Homes League?"

Since November 2010 she contributes regularly to the arts desk: Sarah Kent author page on the arts desk website

Judgements

  • On Gary Wragg (1983):
Gary Wragg’s huge terra cotta canvases stand out. Sketchy areas of black, white and grey create ambiguously transparent readings of space while chalk and paint lines suggest diagrammatic representations- perhaps of Tai Chi movements
  • On Sarah Lucas
    Sarah Lucas
    Sarah Lucas is an English artist. She is part of the generation of Young British Artists who emerged during the 1990s...

     (1994):
an aesthetic terrorist, pillaging mainstream culture. In doing so she acts as a mirror, monitoring the sexism and misogyny routinely found there.
  • On Simon Patterson (1996):
His work is like the physical embodiment of ruminative thought-conceptual art made concrete.
  • On Jim Shaw
    Jim Shaw (artist)
    Jim Shaw is a contemporary American artist, born in Midland, MI, and who now lives and works in Los Angeles. He received his B.F.A. from University of Michigan at Ann Arbor in 1974 and his M.F.A. from the California Institute of the Arts, in 1978. Lives and works in Los Angeles, CA He is married to...

    's "thrift store" show (2000):
Critics professing to be gobsmacked by these efforts can never have seen an amateur art show or walked along the railings of the Bayswater road. They should get out more.

Literature

  • Author: Sarah Kent (Introduction). Demons, Yarns and Tales: Tapestries by Contemporary Artists. Damiani, 2009, ISBN 886208076X
  • Editor Jessica Cargill Thompson, Jonathan Derbyshire. London Calling. Time Out Guides Ltd, 2008, ISBN 978-1-84670-109-2 Sarah Kent: the Merry Go Round 
  • Author: Sarah Kent. Jessica Rankin
    Jessica Rankin
    Jessica Rankin is an Australian artist who lives and works in New York. She has participated in numerous group exhibitions in the US, Europe and Australia. Recent solo exhibitions include White Cube, London , PS1 Contemporary Arts Center, New York and Franklin Artworks, Minneapolis...

    : So Many Echoes of Echoes
    . White Cube, 2007, ISBN 1-906072-03-5/ 978-1-906072-03-2
  • Author: Sarah Kent. Uwe Wittwer
    Uwe Wittwer
    Uwe Wittwer is a Swiss artist. He lives and works in Zürich, Switzerland. The media he uses include watercolor, oil painting, inkjet prints and video.-Life and work:...

     - Hail and Snow
    . Haunch of Venison, Zurich / London, 2007, ISBN 978-1-905620-17-3
  • Author: Sarah Kent, David Batchelor. Pedro Cabrito Reis: Border Crossings. Haunch of Venison, London/Zurich, 2005, ISBN 1-905620-00-4
  • Editor Joe Kerr, Andrew Gibson. London from Punk to Blair. Reaktion Books, 2003, ISBN 1861891717 Sarah Kent: Groundswell
  • Author: Sarah Kent, Will Self, Cathy Courtney, Jo Self. Flowers: Jo Self
    Jo Self
    Jo Self née Lee is an English contemporary artist, poet who specialises in often monumental oil paintings of flowers. In 2001-3 she painted in the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, where she was artist-in-residence in the Marianne North studio.-Background:Self was born and grew up on a Hertfordshire...

    . Frances Lincoln, 2003, ISBN 0711222193
  • Author: Sarah Kent. Darren Lago & Co: Objects of Desire. The New Art Gallery, Walsall, 2001, ISBN 0946652589
  • Editor Hilary Robinson. Feminism-Art-Theory. Blackwell, 2001, ISBN 0-631-20850-X Sarah Kent: Susan Hiller: Anthropology
    Anthropology
    Anthropology is the study of humanity. It has origins in the humanities, the natural sciences, and the social sciences. The term "anthropology" is from the Greek anthrōpos , "man", understood to mean mankind or humanity, and -logia , "discourse" or "study", and was first used in 1501 by German...

     into Art
  • Author: Sarah Kent, Richard Cork, Dick Price. Young British Art: The Saatchi Decade. Boothe-Clibborn Editions, 1999, ISBN 1861540337. *Author: Sarah Kent, Neal Brown. Tracey Emin
    Tracey Emin
    Tracey Karima Emin RA is a British artist of English and Turkish Cypriot origin. She is part of the group known as Britartists or YBAs ....

    . Galgiani, Phillip, 1998, ISBN 0952269023
  • Editor Frank Broughton. Time Out Interviews 1968-98. Penguin Books, 1998, ISBN 0-14-027963-6 Sarah Kent interviews with Joseph Beuys
    Joseph Beuys
    Joseph Beuys was a German performance artist, sculptor, installation artist, graphic artist, art theorist and pedagogue of art.His extensive work is grounded in concepts of humanism, social philosophy and anthroposophy; it culminates in his "extended definition of art" and the idea of social...

    , Gilbert & George, Madonna
    Madonna (entertainer)
    Madonna is an American singer-songwriter, actress and entrepreneur. Born in Bay City, Michigan, she moved to New York City in 1977 to pursue a career in modern dance. After performing in the music groups Breakfast Club and Emmy, she released her debut album in 1983...

    , Tracey Emin
    Tracey Emin
    Tracey Karima Emin RA is a British artist of English and Turkish Cypriot origin. She is part of the group known as Britartists or YBAs ....

    , Damien Hirst
    Damien Hirst
    Damien Steven Hirst is an English artist, entrepreneur and art collector. He is the most prominent member of the group known as the Young British Artists , who dominated the art scene in Britain during the 1990s. He is internationally renowned, and is reportedly Britain's richest living artist,...

  • Author: Brian Robertson, Sarah Kent, Peter Schaffer. Elisabeth Frink
    Elisabeth Frink
    Dame Elisabeth Jean Frink, DBE, CH, RA was an English sculptor and printmaker...

    : Sculpture
    . Harpvale Books, 1985, ISBN 0946425051 / 094642506X / 0946425078
  • Author: Sarah Kent. Fiona Rae
    Fiona Rae
    Fiona Rae is a British artist. Her work is firmly identified with the Young British Artists who rose to prominence in the 1990s....

     Gary Hume
    Gary Hume
    Gary Stewart Hume is an English artist. His work is strongly identified with the YBA artists who came to prominence in the early-1990s. In 1996, Hume was nominated for the Turner Prize, but lost out to Douglas Gordon. Hume was elected a Royal Academician in 2001.-Life and work:Hume was born in...

    . Saatchi Gallery, 1997, ISBN 095274533X
  • Author: Sarah Kent, John McEwen. Paula Rego
    Paula Rego
    Paula Rego is a painter born in Portugal although she is a naturalised British citizen.-Biography:Rego was born in the Portuguese capital Lisbon, the daughter of an electrical engineer who worked for the Marconi Company. Although this gave her a comfortable middle class home, the family was...

    : The Dancing Ostriches from Disney's "Fantasia"
    . Saatchi Gallery, 1996, ISBN 0952745321
  • Author: Sarah Kent, Stephan Balkenhol. Stephan Balkenhol: Sculptures 1988-1996 in the Saatchi Collection. Saatchi Gallery, 1996, ISBN 0952745313
  • Author: Sarah Kent. Eyewitness Art: Composition. DK ADULT, 1995, ISBN 156458612X
  • Author: Sarah Kent. Shark-Infested Waters: The Saatchi
    Saatchi
    Saatchi is an arabic name meaning "clockmaker", from the Arabic -ساعة / ساعت sā'ah / sā'at, "clock", and the originally Turkish craftsman's suffix جي -çi, here transliterated chi.Saatchi in Tamil means "witness"....

     Collection of British Art in the 90s
    . Zwemmer, London, 1994 and Philip Wilson Publishers, London, 2003, ISBN 0856675849
  • Author: Sarah Kent. James Cotier: Nudes in Budapest, Aktok, 1992, ISBN 0-9518630-0-2 
  • Author: Sarah Kent, Jean Fisher, John Roberts, Brandon Taylor. Lifelines/Lebenslinien. Tate
    Tate
    -Places:*Tate, Georgia, a town in the United States*Tate County, Mississippi, a county in the United States*Táté, the Hungarian name for Totoi village, Sântimbru Commune, Alba County, Romania*Tate, Filipino word for States...

     Liverpool/BASF Ludwigshafen, 1990, ISBN3-926138-09-2
  • Author: Sarah Kent, Jacqueline Morreau. Women's Images of Men. Pandora Press, 1990, ISBN 0-04-440461-1
  • Author: Gerry Badger, John Benton-Harris. Through the Looking Glass. Barbican, London, 1989, ISBN 0853315604 Sarah Kent: Taking Issue: Artists as Photographers
  • Author: Sarah Kent. Jacqueline Morreau: Drawings and Graphics. Scarecrow Press, 1986, ISBN 0-8108-1888-4
  • Editor: Claus Honnef. Lichtbildnisse: das Porträt in der Fotografie. Rheinland-Verlag, 1982, ISBN 3-7927-0661-X Sarah Kent: Photography Revelation of Transformation
  • Author: Floris M Neusüs. Fotografie als Kunst, Kunst als Fotografie. DuMont, 1979, ISBN 3-7701-1129-X Sarah Kent: Photography Social and Sensual.
  • Author: Sarah Kent. Hayward Annual Arts Council of Great Britain 1978. ISBN 0 7287 0178 2

See also

  • Time Out
  • Other contemporary UK art critics
David Lee
David Lee (art critic)
David Lee is an outspoken, English, contemporary, art critic—condemning conceptual art in general and the Turner Prize in particular...

Adrian Searle
Adrian Searle
Adrian Searle is the chief art critic of The Guardian newspaper in Britain, and has been writing for the paper since 1996. Previously he was a painter. He curates art shows and also writes fiction.-Career:...

Louisa Buck
Louisa Buck
Louisa Buck is a British art critic and contemporary art correspondent for The Art Newspaper. She was a jurist for the 2005 Turner Prize.-Life:...

Waldemar Januszczak
Waldemar Januszczak
Waldemar Januszczak is a British art critic. Formerly the art critic of The Guardian, he now writes for The Sunday Times, and has twice won the Critic of the Year award...

Matthew Collings
Matthew Collings
-Life and career:In one of his books on art, Collings states that, in his early teenage years, he ran away to Canada. This act was preceded by a period of hanging around in a house in Oakley Street, Chelsea, whose residents included members of various rock bands including Mighty Baby and Family...

Brian Sewell
Brian Sewell
Brian Sewell is an English art critic and media personality. He writes for the London Evening Standard and is noted for artistic conservatism and his acerbic view of the Turner Prize and conceptual art...


External links

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