New Art Masters For Govt

The walls of Government offices are usually adorned with traditional oil paintings and portraits. However, pictures of empty carrier bags and mud smeared on paper could now appear alongside works by Gainsborough and Hogarth. They are among more than 50 works of art that have been bought by the Government Art Collection (GAC) in the past two years to hang in Whitehall offices and British embassies around the world. The new purchases, estimated to be worth about 400,000 pounds, also feature work by young British artists Gavin Turk, Chris Ofili and Grayson Perry, a transvestite potter and former Turner Prize winner with a penchant for pornographic imagery. Among the works most likely to raise eyebrows is a set of prints featuring plastic bags from grocery stores and a chip shop. For the full story - click the title Irish Art