Preview relating to an exhibition, 1998
Published by: The Evening Standard
Year published: 1998
Unpaginated.

2 sheets A3 portrait/monochrome reproduction from original clipping/review of Turner Prize nominee, 1998

Title: Bottom of the *hit parade
Author: Brian Sewell
Source: Evening Standard, Arts section, Thursday 8 October, 1998 p.28-29

Article contains three reproductions of paintings by Chris Ofili with the following caption: “Damned dots and spots: Blossom (left) and She, two 1997 offerings by Turner Prize aspirant Chris Ofili using map pins, glitter and elephant dung. Frock horror: Ofili’s Foxy Roxy, 1997.”

A typically uncompromising review of the work of Turner Prize nominee, Chris Ofili, by critic Brian Sewell. In bold text at the top of the article is the following sentence: “If any of us wants pornography of this feeble kind then most local newsagents have in plenty and for far less than the £15,000 Chris Ofili now charges.” Further on in the article; “If we ignore the elephant dung and their challenging titles, Ofili’s pictures are less remarkable than those thousands now commercially produced in southern Africa, their painters self consciously striving to be primitive and to convince the buyers that they speak from the black man’s heart - spurious rubbish, most of it. Ofili is not African; he is black, his name is African and his parents are Nigerian, but he was born in Manchester in 1968 and is to be counted, with his education at the Chelsea School of Art and the Royal College, as well and truly English.”