
Iakovos "Jake" Chapman (born 1966) and Konstantinos "Dinos" Chapman (born 1962) are British visual artists, previously known as the Chapman Brothers. Their art explores deliberately shocking subject matters; for instance, in 2008, they produced a series of works that appropriated original watercolours by
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler (20 April 1889 – 30 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was the dictator of Nazi Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his suicide in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the lea ...
. In the mid-1990s, their sculptures were included in the
YBA
YBA or yba can refer to a number of things:
* Young British Artists, a movement of British artists in the 1980s and 1990s
* Yala language, a language spoken in Ogoja, Nigeria, by ISO 639 code
* Young Buddhist Association, an association of Bud ...
showcase exhibitions ''
Brilliant!
''Brilliant!'' was a group exhibition of contemporary art held at the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, USA between 22 October 1995 and 7 January 1996. It traveled to the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, Texas, where it was ...
'' and ''
Sensation
Sensation (psychology) refers to the processing of the senses by the sensory system.
Sensation or sensations may also refer to:
In arts and entertainment In literature
*Sensation (fiction), a fiction writing mode
*Sensation novel, a British ...
''. In 2003, the two were nominated for the annual
Turner Prize
The Turner Prize, named after the English painter J. M. W. Turner, is an annual prize presented to a British visual artist. Between 1991 and 2016, only artists under the age of 50 were eligible (this restriction was removed for the 2017 award). ...
but lost out to
Grayson Perry
Sir Grayson Perry (born 24 March 1960) is an English artist. He is known for his ceramic vases, tapestries, and cross-dressing, as well as his observations of the contemporary arts scene, and for dissecting British "prejudices, fashions and foib ...
. In 2013, their painting ''One Day You Will No Longer Be Loved III'' was the subject of
Derren Brown
Derren Brown (born 27 February 1971) is an English mentalist, illusionist, and writer. He is a self-described "psychological illusionist" whose acts are often designed to expose the methods of those who claim to possess supernatural powers, ...
's
Channel 4
Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television channel owned and operated by Channel Four Television Corporation. It is state-owned enterprise, publicly owned but, unlike the BBC, it receives no public funding and is funded en ...
special ''The Great Art Robbery''.
In 2022, with the announcement of Jake Chapman's solo show ''Me, Myself and Eye'', it was disclosed that the Chapman brothers had ended their professional association. Jake Chapman made reference to mutual "seething disdain" and told the ''Guardian'' they were both "sick of the partnership" and were "no longer having fresh ideas together".
Lives and careers
Jake Chapman was born in
Cheltenham
Cheltenham () is a historic spa town and borough adjacent to the Cotswolds in Gloucestershire, England. Cheltenham became known as a health and holiday spa town resort following the discovery of mineral springs in 1716, and claims to be the mo ...
and Dinos Chapman in London. Their father was an English art teacher and their mother an Orthodox
Greek Cypriot
Greek Cypriots (, ) are the ethnic Greek population of Cyprus, forming the island's largest ethnolinguistic community. According to the 2023 census, 719,252 respondents recorded their ethnicity as Greek, forming almost 99% of the 737,196 Cypri ...
(hence "Jake" an anglicised diminutive of the orthodox Iakovos, and "Dinos", a typical diminutive of the orthodox Konstantinos). They were brought up in
Cheltenham
Cheltenham () is a historic spa town and borough adjacent to the Cotswolds in Gloucestershire, England. Cheltenham became known as a health and holiday spa town resort following the discovery of mineral springs in 1716, and claims to be the mo ...
but moved to
St Leonards-on-Sea
St Leonards-on-Sea (commonly known as St Leonards) is a town and seaside resort in the borough of Hastings in East Sussex, England. It has been part of the borough since the late 19th century and lies to the west of central Hastings. The origin ...
where they attended a local comprehensive (Christ Church Primary) & (William Parker School). Dinos studied at the
Ravensbourne College of Art (1980–83), Jake at the
North East London Polytechnic[,] (1985–88) before both together enrolled at the
Royal College of Art
The Royal College of Art (RCA) is a public university, public research university in London, United Kingdom, with campuses in South Kensington, Battersea and White City, London, White City. It is the only entirely postgraduate art and design uni ...
(1988–90), when they also worked as assistants to the artists
Gilbert and George
Gilbert Prousch, sometimes referred to as Gilbert Proesch (born 17 September 1943), and George Passmore (born 8 January 1942) are artists who work together as the collaborative art duo Gilbert & George. They are known for their formal appearance ...
.
Art collaboration
3D models of Goya's work, 250px
They began their own collaboration in 1991. The brothers have often made pieces with plastic models or
fibreglass
Fiberglass (American English) or fibreglass ( Commonwealth English) is a common type of fiber-reinforced plastic using glass fiber. The fibers may be randomly arranged, flattened into a sheet called a chopped strand mat, or woven into glass c ...
mannequin
A mannequin (sometimes spelled as manikin and also called a dummy, lay figure, or dress form) is a doll, often articulated, used by artists, tailors, dressmakers, window dressers and others, especially to display or fit clothing and show off dif ...
s of people. An early piece consisted of eighty-three scenes of
torture
Torture is the deliberate infliction of severe pain or suffering on a person for reasons including corporal punishment, punishment, forced confession, extracting a confession, interrogational torture, interrogation for information, or intimid ...
and
disfigurement
Disfigurement is the state of having one's appearance deeply and persistently harmed medically, such as from a disease, birth defect, or wound. General societal attitudes towards disfigurement have varied greatly across cultures and over time ...
derivative of those recorded by
Francisco Goya
Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes (; ; 30 March 1746 – 16 April 1828) was a Spanish Romanticism, romantic painter and Printmaking, printmaker. He is considered the most important Spanish artist of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Hi ...
in his series of
etching
Etching is traditionally the process of using strong acid or mordant to cut into the unprotected parts of a metal surface to create a design in intaglio (incised) in the metal. In modern manufacturing, other chemicals may be used on other type ...
s, ''
The Disasters of War
''The Disasters of War'' () is a series of 8280 prints in the first published edition (1863), for which the last two plates were not available. See "Execution". prints created between 1810 and 1820 by the Spanish painter and printmaker Franc ...
'' (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
Sensation (psychology) refers to the processing of the senses by the sensory system.
Sensation or sensations may also refer to:
In arts and entertainment In literature
*Sensation (fiction), a fiction writing mode
*Sensation novel, a British ...
'' exhibition in 1997.
Their 1995 mannequin ''Two-faced Cunt'' was of a naked young girl with two heads joined by a vagina, which sold for £91,250 in 2011. The Chapman brothers continued with ''Fuck Face'', a series of mannequins of children, sometimes fused together, with
genitalia
A sex organ, also known as a reproductive organ, is a part of an organism that is involved in sexual reproduction. Sex organs constitute the primary sex characteristics of an organism. Sex organs are responsible for producing and transporting ...
in place of facial features. For example, one has a male toddler wearing a bright red smock with an erect penis in place of his nose and an open anus in place of his mouth. It sold for £115,250 in 2010.
Their sculpture ''Hell'' (2000) consisted of a large number of
miniature figures of
Nazis
Nazism (), formally named National Socialism (NS; , ), is the far-right politics, far-right Totalitarianism, totalitarian socio-political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Germany. During H ...
arranged in nine glass cases laid out in the shape of a
swastika
The swastika (卐 or 卍, ) is a symbol used in various Eurasian religions and cultures, as well as a few Indigenous peoples of Africa, African and Indigenous peoples of the Americas, American cultures. In the Western world, it is widely rec ...
. In 2003, with a series of works named ''Insult to Injury'', they altered a set of Goya's
etching
Etching is traditionally the process of using strong acid or mordant to cut into the unprotected parts of a metal surface to create a design in intaglio (incised) in the metal. In modern manufacturing, other chemicals may be used on other type ...
s by adding
funny faces. As a protest against this piece, performer
Aaron Barschak threw a pot of red paint over Jake Chapman during a talk he was giving in May 2003. (Barshack was imprisoned for one month for the incident.) The Chapmans' oeuvre has also referenced work by
William Blake
William Blake (28 November 1757 – 12 August 1827) was an English poet, painter, and printmaker. Largely unrecognised during his life, Blake has become a seminal figure in the history of the Romantic poetry, poetry and visual art of the Roma ...
,
Auguste Rodin
François Auguste René Rodin (; ; 12 November 184017 November 1917) was a French sculptor generally considered the founder of modern sculpture. He was schooled traditionally and took a craftsman-like approach to his work. Rodin possessed a u ...
and
Nicolas Poussin
Nicolas Poussin (, , ; June 1594 – 19 November 1665) was a French painter who was a leading painter of the classical French Baroque style, although he spent most of his working life in Rome. Most of his works were on religious and mythologic ...
. 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
Timothy Walter Burton (born August 25, 1958) is an American filmmaker and producer. Known for popularizing Goth subculture, Goth culture in the American film industry, Burton is famous for his Gothic film, gothic horror and dark fantasy films. ...
film, in 2004 they curated ''A Nightmare Before Christmas'' as part of the occasional
All Tomorrow's Parties
"All Tomorrow's Parties" is a song by the Velvet Underground and Nico, written by Lou Reed and released as the band's debut single in 1966. The song is from their 1967 debut studio album, ''The Velvet Underground & Nico''.
Inspiration for the so ...
music festival at
Camber Sands
Camber Sands is a beach in East Sussex, England, in the village of Camber, near Rye. It is the only sand dune system in East Sussex. Located east of the estuary of the River Rother at Rye Bay, it stretches to just beyond the Kent border, w ...
. In October 2013 the Chapman brothers took part in ''Art Wars'' at the
Saatchi Gallery
The Saatchi Gallery is a London gallery for contemporary art and an independent charity opened by Charles Saatchi in 1985. Exhibitions which drew upon the collection of Charles Saatchi, starting with US artists and minimalism, moving to the ...
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 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
Modern Art Oxford is an art gallery established in 1965 in Oxford, England. From 1965 to 2002, it was called The Museum of Modern Art, Oxford.
The gallery presents exhibitions of modern and contemporary art. It has a national and international ...
entitled ''The Rape of Creativity'' in which "the ''enfants terribles'' of Britart, bought a mint collection of
Francisco Goya
Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes (; ; 30 March 1746 – 16 April 1828) was a Spanish Romanticism, romantic painter and Printmaking, printmaker. He is considered the most important Spanish artist of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Hi ...
's most celebrated prints – and set about systematically defacing them".
[Jones, Jonathan]
Look What We Did
''The Guardian'', 31 March 2003. Retrieved 3 February 2009. The Goya prints referred to his ''
Disasters of War
A disaster is an event that causes serious harm to people, buildings, economies, or the environment, and the affected community cannot handle it alone. ''Natural disasters'' like avalanches, floods, earthquakes, and wildfires are caused by natur ...
'' set of 80 etchings.
[ The duo named their newly defaced works ''Insult to Injury''.][ ]BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...
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." While ''The Daily Telegraph
''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a British daily broadsheet conservative newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed in the United Kingdom and internationally. It was found ...
'' 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",[Dorment, Richard]
Inspired Vandalism
''The Telegraph'', 27 May 2003. Retrieved 3 February 2009. they also noted that the effect of their work was powerful.[
The Chapman brothers were nominated for the ]Turner Prize
The Turner Prize, named after the English painter J. M. W. Turner, is an annual prize presented to a British visual artist. Between 1991 and 2016, only artists under the age of 50 were eligible (this restriction was removed for the 2017 award). ...
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 doll
A sex doll (also, joy toy, love doll, fuck doll or blowup doll) is an anthropomorphic sex toy in the size and shape of a sexual partner. The sex doll may consist of an entire body, or just a head, pelvis, or other body part (vagina, anus, mo ...
s, 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
Bronze is an alloy consisting primarily of copper, commonly with about 12–12.5% tin and often with the addition of other metals (including aluminium, manganese, nickel, or zinc) and sometimes non-metals (such as phosphorus) or metalloid ...
and painted to look like plastic. That year the prize was eventually won by Grayson Perry
Sir Grayson Perry (born 24 March 1960) is an English artist. He is known for his ceramic vases, tapestries, and cross-dressing, as well as his observations of the contemporary arts scene, and for dissecting British "prejudices, fashions and foib ...
.
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
Lynn Barber (born 22 May 1944) is a British journalist who has worked for many publications, including ''The Sunday Times''.
Early life
Barber was born in Bagshot and attended Lady Eleanor Holles School in southwest London. While she was stud ...
claimed that she had received a death threat from the brothers, following conducting an interview with them.[Lynn Barbe]
"How I suffered for art's sake", ''The Observer'', 1 October 2006, accessed 3 August 2008
In 2007, they were criticised by journalist Johann Hari
Johann Eduard Hari (born 21 January 1979) is a British writer and journalist. Until 2011, Hari wrote for ''The Independent'', among other outlets, before resigning after admitting to plagiarism and fabrications dating from 2001 to 2011. Since t ...
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". This followed a public media brawl between Jake Chapman and journalist Carole Cadwalladr
Carole Jane Cadwalladr (; born 1969) is a British author, investigative journalist, and features writer. She was a features writer for ''The Observer'' and formerly worked at ''The Daily Telegraph''. Cadwalladr rose to international prominence i ...
in ''The Observer'' and on the internet the previous year. Cadwalladr told readers that Chapman told her she made him "feel sick" and threw her out of their studio "into the pouring rain", ordering her to "get out, just get the fuck out!". Chapman made two profanity-laden, ranting, poorly-spelled public replies; the first was addressed to Cadwalladr, making reference to her "hopelessly toothless" wit and making offensive reference to things he claimed to associate with her which he stated made him "quite queasy", including "kippers" and "frumpy laura ashley blouses reeking of stale mothballs" . In the second, to ''The Observer'', addressing Cadwalladr's employers as "unobservant dullards" and making reference to Cadwalladr as "gwendalin silverspoongob" , he claimed to be "laughing at the sheer arrogance in documenting such a forgettable meeting" and concluded "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."
Art by Adolf Hitler
In May 2008, White Cube
White Cube is a contemporary art gallery founded by Jay Jopling in London in 1993. The gallery has two branches in London: White Cube Mason's Yard in central London and White Cube Bermondsey in South East London; White Cube Hong Kong, in Centra ...
gallery exhibited 13 apparently authenticated watercolours painted by Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler (20 April 1889 – 30 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was the dictator of Nazi Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his suicide in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the lea ...
, to which the brothers had added hippie motifs. Jake Chapman described most of the dictator's works as "awful landscapes" which they had "prettified". 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. Waldron also entered into an artistic duel with Hitler, seen as a mediocre bohemian artist, by overlaying her motifs and colour on to expanded copies of thirteen of his drawings.
Also included in the Chapmans' 2008 exhibition was ''Fucking Hell'' and a series of doctored eighteenth and nineteenth century-style aristocratic portraits in oils.
In 2011, in their "Human Rainbow" and "Introspastic" series, the Chapman Brothers produced further works based on the same Hitler drawings of Geli Raubal
Angela Maria "Geli" Raubal (; 4 June 1908 – 18 September 1931) was an Austrian woman who was the half-niece of Adolf Hitler. Born in Linz, Austria-Hungary, she was the second child and eldest daughter of Leo Raubal Sr. and Hitler's half-s ...
and his dogs which had been previously appropriated by Ira Waldron in her 2007 exhibition.
Letter to Culture Secretary
On 1 October 2010, the brothers were co-signatories to an open letter to the British government's Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt
Sir Jeremy Richard Streynsham Hunt (born 1 November 1966) is a British politician who served as Chancellor of the Exchequer from 2022 to 2024 and Foreign Secretary from 2018 to 2019, having previously served as Secretary of State for Health a ...
(featuring previous Turner Prize nominees winners) which opposed any future cuts in public funding for the arts.
Popular culture
The Jilly Cooper
Dame Jilly Cooper, (born Jill Sallitt; 21 February 1937) is an English author. She began her career as a journalist and wrote numerous works of non-fiction before writing several romance novels, the first of which appeared in 1975. Cooper is ...
novel ''Pandora
In Greek mythology, Pandora was the first human woman created by Hephaestus on the instructions of Zeus. As Hesiod related it, each god cooperated by giving her unique gifts. Her other name—inscribed against her figure on a white-ground '' ky ...
'' is set in the world of contemporary art at the turn of the millennium. In a review of the novel, Wendy Holden, writing in the ''New Statesman
''The New Statesman'' (known from 1931 to 1964 as the ''New Statesman and Nation'') is a British political and cultural news magazine published in London. Founded as a weekly review of politics and literature on 12 April 1913, it was at first c ...
,'' who described one scene where a raped woman is also menstruating as "Very Jake and Dinos Chapman".[Holden, Wendy, 'Foreskin Saga.', New Statesman, 13647431, 5/13/2002, Vol. 131, Issue 4587]
Personal lives
Jake Chapman
Jake married the fashion model Rosemary Ferguson in 2004. They have two children together and live in the Cotswolds.
In August 2014 Chapman was quoted as saying that taking children to art galleries is a "total waste of time". The comment caused other notable artists to speak out against Chapman's thoughts.
Dinos Chapman
Dinos was married to Tiphaine de Lussy; they are now divorced. They have two daughters and lived in Spitalfields
Spitalfields () is an area in London, England and is located in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. It is in East London and situated in the East End of London, East End. Spitalfields is formed around Commercial Street, London, Commercial Stre ...
, London. He resides in Laurel Canyon
Laurel Canyon is a mountainous neighborhood in the Hollywood Hills region of the Santa Monica Mountains, within the Hollywood Hills West district of Los Angeles, California. The main thoroughfare of Laurel Canyon Boulevard connects the neig ...
, Los Angeles, with his partner Lucy Punch
Lucy Alice T. Punch (born 30 December 1977) is an English actor. She has appeared in the films '' Ella Enchanted'' (2004), ''Hot Fuzz'' (2007), '' You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger'', '' Dinner for Schmucks,'' (both 2010) and ''Into the Woods'' ...
. They have two sons.
Both brothers are members of Arts Emergency, a British charity working with 16- to 19-year-olds in further education
Further education (often abbreviated FE) in the United Kingdom and Ireland is additional education to that received at secondary school that is distinct from the higher education (HE) offered in universities and other academic institutions. It ...
from diverse backgrounds.
References
Further reading
*
External links
*
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
{{DEFAULTSORT:Chapman, Jake And Dinos
Living people
English people of Greek Cypriot descent
Brother duos
English male sculptors
British installation artists
Alumni of the Royal College of Art
Art duos
1966 births
1962 births
Alumni of the University of East London
English contemporary artists