Art World Infamy: Inigo Philbrick – Golden Boy (Ep. 2)

I'm Aileen Kinsella, and this is Artworld Infamy, a podcast miniseries from Artnet News. so jay is jay joplin the founder of london's white cube who is best known for his ties to one of the biggest contemporary art scenes of britain you know in the 1990s the young british artist Joplin is one of London's most celebrated primary market dealers.

As a young art journalist starting her career in London, Charlotte Burns had firsthand experience with the illustrious gallerist Jay Joplin. To say that he's an art world power player is an understatement. His love of art was cultivated at a young age.

As a child, he spent hours at the Tate Museum and visiting churches in Venice with his mother. He actually bought his first artwork when he was just 14. a limited edition copy of Gilbert and George's book titled Dark Shadow, for just 16 pounds. It was in the late 1980s in London where he first became friends with the now iconic names of the YBA group,

the acronym for Young British Artists. This included a young Damien Hirst and Tracy Emin, who he connected directly with, often socially, and then began hearing out their brazen art ideas and helping them execute them, essentially acting as a manager from the start.

From the beginning, Jay managed to pull off a great balancing act, demonstrating both loyalty and support of their bold work, while also imparting his magic touch to their respective markets. He helped secure major patrons early on, while he steadily built up buzz and demand. Jay Jopling, White Cube. Are you from London?

How are you doing? It was nothing, yeah. Well, welcome to New York. Yes.

You came during the right time of year. How are you guys? Who are you? Are you Jay Joplin?

That's Walter. You're Jay Joplin, and you're who? Tracy. Hi, Tracy.

Emin is a classic example of a young artist who both shocked and fascinated viewers with her candid confessional art. When Tracy first met Jay in a London bar, she famously persuaded him to give her 10 pounds in exchange for a series of somewhat shocking confessional letters delivered monthly.

She went on to become extraordinarily famous and successful, both from a critical and financial standpoint. Just last year, in 2024, she received a damehood from King Charles for her service to the arts. I always just thought, you know, you should never let lack of money get in the way of an idea or, you know, something like that.

And then, obviously, when I was a kid, I'd seen Jaws. I thought, why can't we do a big shark? I just immediately thought it's got to be big enough to eat you. And then in a volume of liquid that would be big enough to frighten you.

In 1991, it was Jay who helped Hearst find the 15-foot tiger shark that would eventually be submerged in formaldehyde and become his famous work with the complex title, The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living. The shark was quickly sold to mega-collector Charles Saatchi for around $100,000, which many regarded as a jaw-dropping price for a wild artwork at the time. A little over 25 years ago, Jay opened the first version of White Cube, a name that was inspired by Brian Doherty's critical essay, Inside the White Cube.

The gallery started as a small space owned by Christie's on Duke Street. He had somehow persuaded them to let him use it rent-free. Over the course of two decades, it grew into a mega-gallery, with branches in Hong Kong, New York, and Paris.

And at one point, there were three massive locations in London. Now there's one in Mason's Yard in central London, and another in Bermondsey in southeast London. At 58,000 square feet of interior space, the Bermondsey location is one of the largest commercial

art galleries in the world. Melanie Gerlis is an art market correspondent for London's Financial Times, and also writes a monthly column for the art newspaper. She watched White Cube's ambitious expansion in the mid-aughts and beyond.

It was basically in lockstep with the broader growth of the contemporary art market. White Cube, sort of almost in response, you know, the London stalwart, opened a vast, vast space in Bermondsey. I mean, it's like an aircraft hangar. It's so big.

And actually, Bermondsey for White Cube was quite central because they'd been further out in Hoxton before and they had a small space in Mayfair. So the London market was kind of centralizing more

around these big international hotels in Mayfair. By the mid-1990s in London, there was a full-blown cultural resurgence. Art, music, and fashion merged to create a scene that many still recall fondly today. At least one of the sparks was lit in 1988, with Damien Hirst's milestone exhibition, Freeze.

That's F-R-E-E-Z-E. The Renegade Student Show was organized in an empty building at Surrey Docks. It included fellow YBAs like Angus Fairhurst, Gary Hume, and Sarah Lucas. Freeze created the momentum for the larger and more contentious show, Sensation,

which was at the Royal Academy in 1997 and was heavily centered on the YBAs. The English music scene was also thriving. Britpop bands like Oasis and The Verve dominated the airwaves, the Spice Girls were rocketing to fame,

and the underground London rave scene was at its peak. The fashion world was introduced to the talents of designers Alexandra McQueen, Phoebe Philo, and Hussein Shalayan. London had become the cool kid of international cities,

setting the stage for the next chapter of the art market boom. The now world-famous Frieze Art Fair was first launched in London in 2003, and that's F-R-I-E-Z-E. It grew out of the eponymous magazine founded by British tastemakers Amanda Sharp and Matthew Sladover.

It always seemed like they had their finger on the pulse of art and culture and knew exactly what was going on, so it wasn't surprising when their Frieze Art Fair was an immediate smash hit with the art world. Freeze was more of an instant hit. It just came straight after all this cool Britannia.

Suddenly England had good music. It was kind of edgy, glam. I think Gwyneth Paltrow went in the