Whose art is it anyway?

Niru Ratnam tackles the thorny question of what constitutes British — or should that be English? — art

In the past few months there have been two large-scale exhibitions showcasing British art. The first was the British Art Show at the Hayward Gallery; the second Modern British Sculpture at the Royal Academy. On show at the former were an elegant suite of works by Wolfgang Tillmans (born in Germany), a tapestry by David Noonan (Australia), the much-lauded film ‘Clock’ by Christian Marclay (America) and the delicate paintings of Maaike Schoorel (Netherlands). The latter boasted an impressive array of colonial plunder displayed next to British sculpture, a neat juxtaposition of Chinese bowls with works by William Staite Murray, Bernard Leach and Barbara Hepworth, and a Damien Hirst vitrine paired with a Jeff Koons vitrine.

In short, the striking feature about both shows was their recasting of Britishness as an all-encompassing globalised ideal. Equally striking was that, in terms of Britishness, this is all they had to say.