Do you, promise not to transform?

As a young artist recently out of undergraduate art school in London, my first reaction to the work of Art Club 2000 in the early nineties was peremptory and hostile…As a young artist recently out of undergraduate art school in London, my first reaction to the work of Art Club 2000 in the early nineties was peremptory and hostile. I remember, surprisingly clearly, muttering ‘wankers’ under my breath before turning the page on the spread of their signature Gap photos that appeared in Artforum. Of all the images of the members of Art Club 2000 dressed in Gap clothing – in a library, in Times Square, on a rooftop, outside a fast-food joint – I think it was the limpid lollygagging in the image of them inside the Conran shop that irritated me most, seeming so slight and vacuous compared to the angry, sarcastic golf-zombies that the London group BANK was producing at the same time. When I turned the page, it was with conviction – a ‘forever’ sort of thing.