The Disasters of Everyday Life
Jake and Dinos Chapman
Blain Southern
Free
The Chapman brothers have a certain obsession with the painter Francisco Goya, particularly his body of work entitled 'The Disasters of War'. In this exhibition, they have imitated many of his etchings, with an imaginative and striking spin through the introduction of colour and many surrealist elements.
The exhibition itself is made up of three walls covered with multiple framed pictures detailing illustrations and painting of various disastrous and negative scenes. The first wall of images have some definite celestial and religious imagery involved, one character appearing as Jesus being overshadowed by a giant child and grim-reaper-esque character. Another image holds direct correlation with Alice In Wonderland: an abstract and surreal depiction of what appears just like the mad hatters tea party, but upon closer reflection is in fact three beasts carrying a dead body.
The second wall has more tame illustrations - less abstract features are included here and appearing much more like Goya's originals. The Chapman's paint over these black and white pictures with a explosion of bright and neon colour, ridding the images of detail and replacing it with a garish and bright alternative. Many of the photos also have glitter on them - making them appear more camp and fun - maybe the Chapman's are aiming to mock Goya's original images, by putting a carefree spin on them.
Alongside the walls are an array of suicide vest sculptures, potentially to reinstate the themes of war, destruction and death. To be perfect honest I didn't really get the coupling between these and the images, however, I do think that they added something to the exhibition and that it would have been weaker without them. I'm sure if you look deep enough into it you'll have a miraculous epiphany on just how vital they were to the overall message...
The last wall contains images stripped of all colour, but instead replaced with collage. These collages have Goya's traditional images as a backdrop, with modern, every-day pictures stuck on the top. For example, there is an image of a man dying, covered up with an overweight man wearing some small swimming shorts and ridiculous sunglasses - if that isn't a disaster of everyday life I don't know what is. In addition to this are further images of death, covered with images of a child crying (probably over something worthless and ridiculous), further highlighting the contrast between actual and acute pain.
The exhibition is eye opening and can be read in numerous ways. Firstly, are the Chapman's criticising our everyday struggles as futile and insignificant, trying to remind us that the actual disasters lie in those of extreme suffering - such as war-zones? Or alternatively, are the Chapman's trying to show that despite there being extreme cases of pain, there are also many cases of cruelty and violence in everyday life. The choice of interpretation is yours.
OVERALL RATING: ****
https://www.blainsouthern.com/exhibitions/the-disasters-of-everyday-life
