Jake or Dinos Chapman at White Cube

Jake or Dinos Chapman at White Cube

29 July, 2011
by: Tom Jeffreys

Tom Jeffreys finds the latest Chapman Brothers exhibition across both White Cube spaces predictably facile.

There's an old Ricky Gervais gag about watching the History and Discovery Channels and seeing nothing but sharks and Nazis. He goes on to prove the superiority of the former over the latter by listing its incredible predatory assets, like being able to taste one part of blood in a billion from over a mile away. “A shark,” he concludes, clicking his fingers, “would've found Anne Frank like that.”

The point is that there seem to be a lot of similarities between the stereotype of the lazy comedian sitting around watching TV all day and the cream of British contemporary art, in the form of the YBAs. Damien Hirst made his name with a shark in formaldehyde, whilst the Chapman Brothers seem to do nothing but Nazis these days. This month saw the launch of their latest exhibition – across both White Cube spaces – and surprise, surprise, more Nazis!

Over in Mason's Yard, the downstairs gallery is packed with figures of the Nazi's SS paramilitary organisation, their black death's head faces leering out, and their swastika logos replaced with smiley faces from early '90s rave culture. These sinister/comic figures are dotted about the gallery space peering at a range of other works by the Chapmans – overpainted prints, join-the-dots pictures of squirrels, rabbits and other such fairytale scenes.

Meanwhile, over at Hoxton Square, there's a school trip for a group of children, their faces disfigured with pointy ears, elephant trunks and duck bills, and all of them clad in matching brown tracksuits, branded with a swastika and the inanely anti-nothing slogan, “They Teach Us Nothing”. Whilst these kids are looking at a rather lame painting of a bunny, the Nazis at Mason's Yard stand around examining various dark abstract structures, or engage in anal sex. An elaborate contraption enables a stuffed pigeon to squirt white paint onto an inattentive SS officer. Hilarious.

Dotted around both spaces are various readymade sculptural objects on plinths, the ones in Hoxton featuring cotton wool buds and what look like primitive Polynesian figurines, whilst the ones in Mason's Yard feature loo role tubes and egg cartons. The look like handmade Warhammer scenery, but bearing sticky labels with such meaninglessly portentous slogans as “Separation Anxiety”, “Chernobyl”, “Postpartum Howl” or “The Curse of Common Sense”. Yawn.

Other attempts to co-opt significance from elsewhere include a series of mutilated religious paintings and sculptures upstairs in Hoxton Square, exhibited alongside children's classroom chairs and sections of wall, and, in Mason's Yard, a figure in a Ku Klux Klan hood, sporting a tie-dye skirt and sizeable erection. He stands gazing at a painting of the crucifixion apparently by “a follower of Pieter Brueghel the Younger”.

Interestingly, the Telegraph reports that this was bought in auction less than four years ago for £39,000 at Sotheby's, Amsterdam but recently sold – after the Chapman Brothers messed about with it a bit – for £750,000 by White Cube.

Clearly, White Cube have got some good salesman, because this – alongside everything else on show across both spaces – is garbage. The Chapman Brothers may be trying to make points about evil, about humour, about the nature of art, and what it means to view art, but the problem is that, after the initial shock, their work doesn't really do anything. And nothing wears off quicker than shock. This is not work that's in any way cleverly ambiguous; it's just meaningless. Sharks, Nazis and nothing more. Gervais has more to say than these jokers.

Jake or Dinos Chapman is at both branches of White Cube until 17th September 2011.

Click here to see all London exhibitions.
Click here for things to do in London.
Return to Spoonfed's London Art homepage.

Tom Jeffreys