Forty years ago, the Tories launched a scheme to foster entrepreneurs – but artists from Jarvis Cocker to Rachel Whiteread saw another way to use it. So did a government seen as hostile to the arts kickstart Britpop and the YBAs?

Tate Britain, London
Once the provocative home of artistic sensation, the gallery is now vacuous, worthy and fundamentally dull. It even seems to disapprove of the very British art it used to promote

‘Charles Saatchi offered to put it on wheels and take it to his gallery – but I wanted it to stay at its location’

The squidgy folds and gelatinous wobbles of work by Rachel Whiteread, Holly Hendry and others are hard to keep your hands off – and tell us much about overcoming sexist attitudes in art

Jeremy Deller unleashed a yacht-throwing colossus and Rachel Whiteread hit the streets with a vacuum cleaner … six leading artists recall representing Britain at the arts extravaganza