Ah, the good old Chapman brothers. If you want to offend look no further.
Exhibited at Charles Saatchi’s now infamous Sensation show with the catchy title ‘Zygotic acceleration, biogenetic, de-sublimated libidinal model’ was summed up in the exhibition catalogue as:
“genderless, self-reproducing manifestations of excess libidinal energy gone awry”.
Who can argue with that?
American Tan XXIV - Gary Hume
2007
Edition of 150
Screenprint from 7 screens and 3 varnishes, hand embossed areas, printed on 410gsm Somerset Tub Sized paper
Paper size 122 x 100 cm
Image size 99 x 78 cm
The paintings and sculpture in Hume’s ‘American Tan’ series emerge from his fascination with the all-American cheerleader and how such an innocuous figure can express so many ideas about American culture. Hume abstracts their athletic bodies and adornments to create beautiful, simple shapes of positive and negative space in Hume’s distinctive style. Hume pays special attention to subtle changes in the printed form such as tonal variations and line adjustments. The formal simplicity of the print is given depth by embossing, which mimics the surface variations that are evident in Hume’s paintings, and adds a sensual dimension to the flat surface of the print.
Jake & Dinos Chapman - Insult to Injury Wallpaper
This wallpaper was produced by Jake and Dinos Chapman using the motif of their renowned reworkings of Goya’s ‘Los Caprichos’ etchings.
The traditional vignet formation found on French wallpapers of the 19th century has on close inspection here been transformed into another of the Chapman brothers’ signature works.
Emerging from the Saatchi Young British Artists circus Jake and Dino Chapman have carved out a sinister corner of the art world all for themselves.
Take a step with me into their world – it’s filled with horror, mutation, apocalypse, sadism and McDonald’s. Sound like fun? Well actually humour is key to their work – a child like sense of destruction and naughtiness pervades everything.
Check out a video of their Hell installation here:
Even their most gruesome work has precedents in the ‘establishment’ – their iconic “Great deeds! Against the dead” work featured in Charles Saatchi’s Sensation show is a parody of Goya’s Disasters of War series. See their work and Goya’s original directly below:
Jake and Dinos Chapman Great Deeds! Against the Dead” 1994
Goya, “Great Deeds! Against the Dead”, 1810-20,
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Tagged brit art, charles saatchi, goya, Jake Dinos Chapman, jay jopling, pop art, saatchi, sensation, white cube, YBA
Ever wanted to dress up like Elvis, Andy Warhol or Sid Vicious?
Gavin Turk’s done all three.
Turk began bursted onto the art radar by exhibiting a blue heritage plaque in his studio at the Royal College of Art, which said “Gavin Turk worked here, 1989-1991″.
Cheeky perhaps?
Turk’s work is full of wit and referential humour, cunningly done through paraphrasing already well-known works of art from the recent past.
He also examines what the paraphernalia of ‘genius’ consists of – a signature; an identifiable style; a marketable identity.
'Jackie Blue Elvis' Diamond Dust print
Gavin Turk In Memory of Silver Beuys 2004
Gavin Turk Hasta La Victoria
Posted in art
Tagged Andy Warhol, art, brit art, british art, Diamond dust, gavin turk, Jacques Louis David, Jasper Johns, Marcel Duchamp, Rene Magritte, saatchi, sensation, silkscreen, warhol, Young British Artists, Yves Klein
