Dear List,

As a British art historian working in a Museum (the V&A) that is currently seeking to court the more controversial aspects of the contemporary, I have been following the debate over Sensation in NYC with great interest.

One point that seems to have taken a back seat is the art itself. It has been pointed out by several contributors that you need to see the art to judge it. I was lucky enough to be able to see the recent exhibition on Chris Ofili (known on this list as Mr Elephant Dung) at the Serpentine Gallery in London, and came away profoundly impressed with the subtlety and skill of his art. Ofili later went on to win the Turner prize, and can be credited as one of a new breed of British artists who is returning to painting.

As a large scale retrospective of his work makes clear, the dung is  one of many motifs that he has cleverly used in his work to explore the issue of race. The negative connotations of dung are transmuted in his work into positive ones - ultimately, one feels, the dung symbolises Africa. Not for nothing did he invent a new superhero for his paintings - "Captain Shit". Perhaps the most surprising impressions at the Serpentine exhibition were the wonderfully pleasant smell which the small amounts of dried dung gave to the exhibition space, and the lack (I want to emphasise this) of shock factor.

Ofili's work struck me as particularly mature and sober - a far cry from the get-rich-quick market-driven art that some on the list clearly believe it to be. Am I the only one that sees a certain cultural nationalism at work here?

Glyn Davies
Victoria and Albert Museum

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