''East Country Yard Show'' was an exhibition of contemporary art organized by

Henry Bond Henry Bond, Higher Education Academy, FHEA (born 13 June 1966) is an English writer, photographer, and visual artist. In his ''Lacan at the Scene'' (2009), Bond made contributions to psychoanalysis, theoretical psychoanalysis and forensics. I ...

and

Sarah Lucas Sarah Lucas (born 1962) is an English artist. She is part of the generation of Young British Artists who emerged during the 1990s. Her works frequently employ visual puns and bawdy humour by incorporating photography, collage and found objects. ...

. 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 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 Goldsm ...

Location and scale

The show was presented in a large empty warehouse, the ''East Country Yard'' building, in

South Dock, Rotherhithe South Dock is one of two surviving docks in the former Surrey Commercial Docks in Rotherhithe, London, England. It was built in 1807–1811 just south of the larger Greenland Dock, to which it is connected by a channel now known as Greenland Cu ...

within the

Surrey Commercial Docks The Surrey Commercial Docks were a large group of docks in Rotherhithe, South East London, located on the south bank (the Surrey side) of the River Thames. The docks operated in one form or another from 1696 to 1969. Most were subsequently fi ...

complex. The docks were closed in 1969, and by 1990 were being redeveloped by a plethora of

property development Real estate development, or property development, is a business process, encompassing activities that range from the renovation and re-lease of existing buildings to the purchase of raw land and the sale of developed land or parcels to others. R ...

companies. One of them, ''Skillion''—who had purchased several large buildings but had not yet begun to develop them—was approached by

Bond Bond or bonds may refer to: Common meanings * Bond (finance), a type of debt security * Bail bond, a commercial third-party guarantor of surety bonds in the United States * Chemical bond, the attraction of atoms, ions or molecules to form chemical ...

. Reviewing the show in

Time Out Time-out, Time Out, or timeout may refer to: Time * Time-out (sport), in various sports, a break in play, called by a team * Television timeout, a break in sporting action so that a commercial break may be taken * Timeout (computing), an enginee ...

the art critic David Lillington said, "The East Country Yard is a gigantic complex of old warehouses in which each artist has a 200-foot-long room." Equally, writing in his book ''Lucky Kunst: The Rise and Fall of Young British Art'', commentator Gregor muir said, "'East Country Yard' in South Dock, Docklands ... featured huge installations by Gary Hume and Anya Gallaccio, and could claim to have taken place in a space four times the size of Saatchi Gallery."

Exhibited artists

Anya Gallaccio Anya Gallaccio (born 1963) is a British artist, who creates site-specific, minimalist installations and often works with organic matter (including chocolate, sugar, flowers and ice). Her use of organic materials results in natural processes ...

Gary Hume Gary Stewart Hume (born 9 May 1962) is an English artist. Hume's work is strongly identified with the YBA who came to prominence in the early 1990s. Hume lives and works in London and Accord, New York.

Michael Landy Michael Landy (born 1963) is one of the Young British Artists (YBAs). He is best known for the performance piece installation '' Break Down'' (2001), in which he destroyed all his possessions, and for the ''Art Bin'' project (2010) at the ...

Virginia Nimarkoh Virginia Agyeiwah Nimarkoh (born January 1967) is a British artist and activist, based in London. Nimarkoh was born in London, and studied at Goldsmiths College London from 1986 to 1989, graduating with a PhD in Fine Art (Theory & Practice) ...

Tom Trevor Thomas Trevor (born 1962) is a British curator and writer on contemporary art. Trevor is Associate Professor of Contemporary Art and Curation at the University of Exeter. He was previously Artistic Director of The Atlantic Project, in Plymouth, ...

Critical reception

Writing in

The Independent ''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was publis ...

, art critic

Andrew Graham-Dixon Andrew Michael Graham-Dixon (born 26 December 1960) is a British art historian and broadcaster. Life and career Early life and education Andrew Graham-Dixon is a son of the barrister Anthony Philip Graham-Dixon (1929–2012), Q.C., and (M ...

said,

Goldsmiths' graduates are unembarrassed about promoting themselves and their work: some of the most striking exhibitions in London over the past few months—"The East Country Yard Show", or "Gambler", both staged in docklands—have been independently organized and funded by Goldsmiths' graduates as showcases for their work. This has given them a reputation for pushiness, yet it should also be said that in terms of ambition, attention to display and sheer bravado there has been little to match such shows in the country's established contemporary art institutions. They were far superior, for instance, to any of the contemporary art shows that have been staged by the Liverpool Tate in its own multi-million-pound dockland site.

Writing in

Artforum ''Artforum'' is an international monthly magazine specializing in contemporary art. The magazine is distinguished from other magazines by its unique 10½ x 10½ inch square format, with each cover often devoted to the work of an artist. Notabl ...

, Kate Bush said,

irst's''Freeze'' anticipated a spate of do-it-yourself group shows staged in cheap, sprawling, ex-industrial spaces in recession-hit East London. Henry Bond and Sarah Lucas's ''East Country Yard Show'' as well as Carl Freedman and Billee Sellman's ''Modern Medicine'' and ''Gambler'', all in 1990, were, with ''Freeze'', the shows that fueled the myth of YBA as, paradoxically, both oppositional and entrepreneurial.

Keith Patrick said,

ollowing ''Freeze''many of the same artists showed again two years later in four artist-led exhibitions ''Modern Medicine'', ''Gambler'', the ''East Country Yard Show'' and ''Market'' ... although ''Freeze'' had been poorly attended and barely reviewed, these shows together became a symbol of a new artist-led entrepreneurship, a combination of calculated anarchy and an astute reading of the changing relationship of the artist to the market.

Gallaccio's installation ''Tense''

For her component of the exhibition

printed rolls of wallpaper featuring an orange motif, "the paper was pasted on the walls, and on the floor Gallaccio made an oblong 'carpet' comprising one ton of Valencia oranges which gradually decayed over the duration of the show."V&A Museu
Item: O63953
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References

External links

Catalogue entry at Baltic Mill
{{DEFAULTSORT:East Country Yard Show Contemporary art exhibitions Young British Artists Art exhibitions in the United Kingdom 1990 in art 1990 in London