The moves deemed necessary to enjoy career success in the British art world are becoming increasingly restricted to badges of triumph within an overwhelmingly competitive system. Beck’s, the beer company that, as an ubiquitous sponsor, entered into a symbiotic relationship with British art some years ago, recently inaugurated the Beck’s Futures prize. Aimed at artists with growing reputations, it has provided a useful staging post between the up-and-comer status conferred by an appearance in the annual New Contemporaries exhibition and the reputation-confirming imprimatur of a Turner Prize

Jemima Stehli seems bent on provocation. Even before her recent show opened, I had already heard several people say that they had no intention of seeing it. What was it that had gotten on their nerves? Apparently they were revulsed by “Strip,” 1999/2000, an earlier group of photographs, which Stehli had made in collaboration with a number of male critics. In those images, the artist is seen from behind, nude or nearly so, in the foreground; in the background of the otherwise empty studio sits the fully clothed male subject holding the camera’s trip wire. Invoking the idea of male control over