Sensationalists: The Bad Girls and Boys of British Art

A look at the origins of the Young British Artists in the art schools of the mid-80s, a shocking and provocative movement which would culminate in the notorious 1997 exhibition Sensation.

In the 1990s, young artists, musicians and creatives use the recession in Britain to their advantage, putting on their own shows in abandoned spaces and warehouses and moving to the run-down and deserted East End of London to live, work and play.

In an age of marketing and branding, advertising guru Charles Saatchi groups together a series of young, contemporary British artists to provide their experience of Britain, which leads to the first female winner of the Turner Prize, a pickled shark that creates waves, as well as eggs, kebabs and rotting meat – all in the name of art.

It culminates in Sensation, the iconoclastic exhibition of Saatchi's private collection at the Royal Academy, where the young rebels are placed at the heart of the establishment. The results are explosive - but is it art?

In September 1997, the Royal Academy puts on an iconoclastic exhibition at the heart of the art establishment – Sensation. It causes a sensation itself, with 300,000 people flocking to see Charles Saatchi's taboo-breaking private collection of artworks by a new generation of young British contemporary artists. Inspiring protests, resignations and tabloid column inches, it rocks the art world to its core while cementing contemporary art at the heart of public consciousness.

Contemporary art and young artists are propelled into the limelight, with some, like Damien Hirst and Tracey Emin, reaching mega-star status. Art is now attracting huge audiences, controversy grows around artworks such as Tracey Emin's My Bed and Antony Gormley's The Angel of the North, and contemporary art finds its dedicated national home with the construction of the Tate Modern.