Chris Hayes

It’s 20 years since the Royal Academy’s controversial ‘Sensation’ exhibition launched the careers of some of Britain’s biggest artists. Chris Hayes looks back at how it shook up the art world  Twenty years ago this September, the Royal Academy staged an exhibition that shocked the world. Here was a beloved British art institution, letting a private collector – Charles Saatchi – invade its hallowed halls and befoul its galleries with debased, debauched and seriously upsetting art. Whether it was Damien Hirst’s pickled shark, Marc Quinn’s self-portrait made of his own frozen blood or Marcus Harvey’s painting of the serial killer Myra Hindley, this was a show that the public couldn’t ignore. Countless protests, resignations and tabloid column inches later, we’re still feeling the effects of ‘Sensation’. Here’s how one exhibition changed the shape of art. AFP/Getty Images       1. It put British art on the map Paris has the Impressionists, New York has Pop Art, but London gave the world Damien Hirst, Tracey Emin, Rachel Whiteread and the rest of the motley crew who came to be known as the Young British Artists. Plucked from the collection of advertising exec Charles Saatchi, their work was showcased at the Royal Academy. ‘For better or for worse, “Sensation” put British art on the map,’ says Gregor Muir, author of ‘Lucky Kunst: The Rise and Fall of Young British Art’. ‘Nowhere has embraced contemporary art in quite the same way Britain has. Everyone from cab drivers to polit