Feel a surfeit of goodwill coming on? Apprehensive about an embarrassme nt of simple-minded seasonal rejoicing? A visit to the Tate Gallery will put you right. There Christmas misery can be guaranteed. By Andrew Graham- Dixon

'A scatological aesthetic for the

Georgina Starr's latest multi-media installation at the Tate demonstrat es that art as psycho-karaoke is wearing thin. By Michael Bracewell

Grennan and Sperandio work together, but almost never meet. They want to keep it that way. By Michael Bracewell

SEX, DRUGS AND ROCK 'N' ROLL Introducing our three-week exploration of sex, drugs and rock'n'roll in the Nineties, Dylan Jones asks whether British culture has rediscovered the power to shock

Which names will you hear everywhere in the year ahead? David Benedict canvassed the views of the Independent's critics

"All aboard, room for one more upstairs..." Three British bobbies were lined up like a Gilbert and Sullivan chorus, the incongruity of their bus conductors' cries compounded by their accents, an unholy melange of cockney and Minnesotan. Actors playing PCPlod were the least of this event, the opening of "Brilliant! New Art from London", the most hyped show in America, let alone Minneapolis. Here was the first major retrospective of young British art, but in a city few Londoners could locate, in the heart of America's conservative farmland. This incongruity was evident at the opening Punk & Circumstance party with Mid-western versions of everything from guardsmen to a "Jungle" rave, even a British makeover room where locals were transformed "from Mod to Punk and back again". There were scandalous souvenir photos, "Your mug in the tabloids", darts " in the British pub tradition" and a Brit lookalike competition resulting in many bowlers and brollies, yet won by a soccer hooligan with a Union Jack head. This wackiness and the booming backbeat of Cockney Rebel made the work itself seem tame, whether Damien Hirst's dots or Rachel Whiteread's mattress, lost in the excesses of jokey nationalism.

Jake and Dinos Chapman are the Burke and Hare of contemporary British Art. Impeccable craftsmen, theoretically astute, art historically aware and British Council approved - they are in the show of young Brits at the Venice Biennale - the Chapman brothers are also the perpetrators of some of the most unseemly art of our times.

Andrew Graham-Dixon observes its centenary

Often ridiculed by the media and public at home, young British artists are recognised abroad as creating the world's liveliest art scene. Geraldine Norman asks the new London dealers to predict the big names for 1995