SENSATION : EPHEMERA FROM THE CONTROVERSY
Maggots & Elephant Dung at the Brooklyn Museum, 1999

Given the cautious nature of today’s art world it’s refreshing to remember a time when museum’s actually courted controversy. The Brooklyn Museum must have suspected there would be trouble when they brought Sensation: Young British Artists from the Saatchi Collection to New York in 1999. Mock health warning signs cautioning that the exhibition could cause “shock, vomiting, confusion, euphoria, and anxiety” point to their complicity.

What was shown in the exhibition? Attention grabbing highlights included Damien Hirst’s sliced pig and floating shark, Jack and Dinos Chapman’s mannequins of children with penis noses and anus mouths, Tracy Emin’s list of everyone she ever slept with, and most controversially, Chris Ofili’s Holy Virgin Mary with elephant dung. Reactions included protests by the Catholic League, defacement of a painting by a religious zealot, and an unhinged Mayor Giuliani threatening to evict the museum from their city owned building.

Predictably, the Brooklyn Museum weathered the storm. Sensation became a cause célèbre and an attendance juggernaut. And more important, time has shown that Sensation actually had art historical staying power. Hirst, Emin, Ofili, Rachel Whiteread, Sarah Lucas and Jenny Saville are just some of the artists from the exhibition who continue to be active today.