Jake and Dinos Chapman

A Jake and Dinos Chapman fused mannequin piece from the exhibition 'Come and See' at the Serpentine Gallery

Iakovos "Jake" (born 1966) and Konstantinos "Dinos" (born 1962) are British visual artists, often known as the Chapman Brothers. Their subject matter tries to be deliberately shocking, including, in 2008, a series of works that appropriated original watercolours by Adolf Hitler. In the mid-1990s, their sculptures were included in the YBA showcase exhibitions Brilliant! and Sensation. In 2003, the two were nominated for the annual Turner Prize but lost out to Grayson Perry. In 2013, their painting One Day You Will No Longer Be Loved III was the subject of Derren Brown's Channel 4 special, The Great Art Robbery.

Lives and careers

Jake Chapman was born in Cheltenham and Dinos Chapman in London. Their father was an English art teacher and their mother an orthodox Greek Cypriot (hence "Jake" an anglicised diminutive of the orthodox Iakovos, and "Dinos", a typical diminutive of the orthodox Konstantinos). They were brought up in Cheltenham but moved to Hastings where they attended a local comprehensive (William Parker School). Dinos studied at the Ravensbourne College of Art (1980–83), Jake at the North East London Polytechnic^[1] (1985–88) before both together enrolled at The Royal College of Art (1988–90), when they also worked as assistants to the artists Gilbert and George.^[2]

Art collaboration

They began their own collaboration in 1991. The brothers have often made pieces with plastic models or fibreglass mannequins of people. An early piece consisted of eighty-three scenes of torture and disfigurement derivative of those recorded by Francisco Goya in his series of etchings, The Disasters of War (a work they later returned to) rendered into small three-dimensional plastic models. One of these was later turned into a life-size work, Great Deeds Against the Dead, shown along with Zygotic Acceleration, Biogenetic, De-Sublimated Libidinal Model (Enlarged x 1000) at the Sensation exhibition in 1997.

The Chapman brothers continued the theme of anatomical and pornographic grotesque with a series of mannequins of children, sometimes fused together, with genitalia in place of facial features. Their sculpture Hell (2000) consisted of a large number of miniature figures of Nazis arranged in nine glass cases laid out in the shape of a swastika. In 2003, with a series of works named Insult to Injury, they altered a set of Goya's etchings by adding funny faces. As a protest against this piece, Aaron Barschak (who later gate-crashed Prince William's 21st birthday party dressed as Osama bin Laden in a frock) threw a pot of red paint over Jake Chapman during a talk he was giving in May 2003. The Chapmans' oeuvre has also referenced work by William Blake, Auguste Rodin and Nicolas Poussin. Jake Chapman has published a number of catalogue essays and pieces of art criticism in his own right, as well as a book, Meatphysics (Creation Books, 2003). The brothers have also designed a label for Becks beer as part of a series of limited edition labels produced by contemporary artists. Using a title from the Tim Burton film, in 2004 they curated A Nightmare Before Christmas as part of the occasional All Tomorrow's Parties music festival at Camber Sands. In October 2013 the Chapman brothers took part in Art Wars at the Saatchi Gallery curated by Ben Moore. The artists were issued with a stormtrooper helmet, which they transformed into a work of art. Proceeds went to the Missing Tom Fund set up by Ben Moore to find his brother Tom who has been missing for over ten years. The work was also shown on the Regents Park platform as part of Art Below Regents Park.

The Rape of Creativity

From April – June 2003, the Chapmans held a solo show at Modern Art Oxford entitled The Rape of Creativity in which "the enfants terribles of Britart, bought a mint collection of Goya's most celebrated prints – and set about systematically defacing them".^[3] The Francisco Goya prints referred to his Disasters of War set of 80 etchings.^[3] The duo named their newly defaced works Insult to Injury.^[3] BBC described more of the exhibition's art: "Drawings of mutant Ronald McDonalds, a bronze sculpture of a painting showing a sad-faced Hitler in clown make-up and a major installation featuring a knackered old caravan and fake dog turds."^[4] While The Daily Telegraph commented that the Chapman brothers had "managed to raise the hackles of art historians by violating something much more sacred to the art world than the human body – another work of art",^[5] they also noted that the effect of their work was powerful.^[5]

Jake and Dinos Chapman. Death, 2003

The Chapman brothers were nominated for the Turner Prize in 2003. As well as including Insult to Injury, their Turner Prize exhibit debuted two new works Sex and Death. Sex directly referenced their previous work Great Deeds against the Dead. The original work shows three dismembered corpses hanging from a tree, Sex shows the same scenario, but in a heightened state of decay. Additionally clown's noses are now present on the skulls of the corpses; snakes, rats and insects (like those found in joke shops) cover the piece. Death is two sex dolls, placed on top of each other, head-to-toe in the 69 sex position: despite appearing to be made of plastic it is in fact cast in bronze and painted to look like plastic.

That year the prize was eventually won by Grayson Perry.

On 24 May 2004, a fire in a storage warehouse destroyed many works from the Saatchi collection including Hell. The brothers subsequently made a very similar, though more extensive, work called Fucking Hell.

Disputes with journalists

In 2006, the journalist Lynn Barber claimed that she had received a death threat from the brothers, following conducting an interview with them.^[6]

In 2007, they were criticised by journalist Johann Hari for adopting an anti-Enlightenment philosophy, and for Jake Chapman saying that the boys who murdered Liverpool toddler James Bulger performed "a good social service".^[7] This followed a public media brawl between Jake Chapman and journalist Carole Cadwalladr in The Observer and on the internet the previous year. Cadwalladr told readers that Chapman threw her out of their studio.^[8] Jake publicly replied, "You may grace your readers with the meek tones of plum-mouthed middle-Englanders, but don't send them round to my studio I'll make [...] mince meat out of them, ha ha ha."^[9]

Art by Adolf Hitler

In May 2008, White Cube gallery exhibited 13 apparently authenticated watercolours painted by Adolf Hitler, to which the brothers had added hippie motifs.^[10] Jake Chapman described most of the dictator's works as "awful landscapes" which they had "prettified".^[11] The central device and context of this exhibition were strikingly similar to those of the artist Ira Waldron in her project "Die damen mit den Hündchen", first exhibited at the Thessaloniki Biennale of Contemporary art in May 2007.^[12] Waldron also entered into an artistic duel with Hitler, seen as a mediocre bohemian artist,^[13] by overlaying her motifs and colour on to expanded copies of thirteen of his drawings.^[14]

Also included in the Chapmans' 2008 exhibition was Fucking Hell, the (somewhat altered) remake of Hell, and a series of doctored eighteenth and nineteenth century-style aristocratic portraits in oils.^[15]

In 2011, in their "Human Rainbow" and "Introspastic" series, the Chapman Brothers produced further works based on the same Hitler drawings of Geli Raubal and his dogs which had been previously appropriated by Ira Waldron in her 2007 exhibition.

Letter to Culture Secretary

On 1 October 2010, in an open letter to the British government's Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt – co-signed by a further 27 previous Turner prize nominees, and 19 winners – the brothers opposed any future cuts in public funding for the arts. In the letter the cosignatories described the arts in Britain as a "remarkable and fertile landscape of culture and creativity."^[16]

AKA Below

In 2012, to go alongside the AKA Peace Exhibition at the ICA^[17] Art Below showcased selected works from the AKA Peace series on the London Underground. "AKA Peace" originally conceived by photographer Bran Symondson and now curated by Jake Chapman, is an exhibition of new works made specially for The Peace One Day Project 2012, bringing together a group of Contemporary Artists, all of whom agreed to transform a decommissioned AK-47 assault rifle, refashioning into artworks.^[18] Artists work that was featured included: Laila Shawa, Nancy Fouts, Charming Baker, Bran Symondson, Langlands & Bell, Mat Collishaw, and Antony Micallef^[19]

Personal lives

Jake Chapman

Jake married the fashion model Rosemary Ferguson at a ceremony at Christ Church, Spitalfields, in London, in 2004. Guests at the wedding included Kate Moss, Sadie Frost, musician Noel Gallagher's ex-wife Meg Mathews and artist Sam Taylor-Wood. Ferguson gave birth to their first child in 2005.

The Chapmans live in Filkins, Oxfordshire, in a restored Victorian farmhouse.

In August 2014 Chapman was quoted as saying that taking children to art galleries is a "total waste of time", stating that "children are not human yet." The comment caused other notable artists to speak out against Chapman's thoughts.^[20]

BBC Art Critic, Will Gompertz referred to a defining characteristic of the "YBAs" being their ability to manipulate biddable media to get attention:

The formula is simple: When you have an exhibition to promote, say something mildly inflammatory to the press, and watch the column inches (particularly in August) and ticket sales soar.

Jake Chapman's comment about kids and paintings is a beautifully crafted example of the art. It has generated loads of attention, reinforced the brothers' bad-boy brand, and alerted an "outraged" middle England to the Chapmans' new show. Job done.

Dinos Chapman

Dinos is married to Tiphaine de Lussy, they have two children. They live in a terraced house in Spitalfields, London. The couple were involved in the renovation of the house; they "chose iroko for the floors; a warm Brazilian wood normally used in ship keels."^[21]

Both are members of The Arts Emergency Service, a British charity working with 16- to 19-year-olds in further education from diverse backgrounds.^[22]

See also

• What Do Artists Do All Day?

References

External links

• Official website
• BBC Collective Video interview with The Chapmans filmed in White Cube
• Jake and Dinos Chapman: Bad Art for Bad People – exhibition at Tate Liverpool, December 2006 – March 2007
• Jake and Dinos Chapman: Come and See – exhibition at the Serpentine Galleries, November 2013 – February 2014
• Interview by Emily Bearn
• interview by Maia Damianovic