Jake Chapman (born 1966) and Dinos Chapman (born 1962) are brothers and English artists who work almost exclusively in collaboration with each other. Their father was a British art teacher and their mother an orthodox Greek Cypriot. They were brought up in Cheltenham but moved to Hastings where they attended a local comprehensive and enrolled at the Royal College of Art.
Jake was born in Cheltenham, Dinos in London. Both studied at the Royal College of Art and worked as assistants to Gilbert and George before beginning to collaborate in 1992.
Considered as a whole the brothers' work appears to be concerned with what might be described as the redundancy of liberal humanist notions of the redemptive value of the work of art, as well as notions of transgression, which might, by virtue of its 'canonical' place in art theory, be considered equally redundant . The brothers appear to have been influenced by much 20th century continental philosophy and often employ a technical vocabulary drawn from this in their interviews.
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 as recorded by Francisco Goya in his series of etchings, 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 alteration with a series of mannequins of children, sometimes fused together, with genitalia in place of facial features. These works had titles which reflected the combined humour and capacity to shock often considered so typical of the brothers' work, such as Fuckface and Two-Faced Cunt. It might be noted however, that at the core of such works is an apparently banal subtext - the rendering of a gutter slang term into physical actuality. The approach is typical of Britart.
Hell (2000) saw a return to their earlier miniature form. It consisted of a large number of very small miniature figures of Nazis engaged in acts of torture arranged in nine glass cases laid out in the shape of a swastika.
The brothers have often been the subject of controversy. Aside from complaints on the grounds of bad taste, there were protests in 2003 when they returned to Goya's Disasters of War with a series of works named Insult to Injury, directly altering a set of Goya's etchings purchased by the Chapmans by adding funny faces, an act described by some as "defacement". Ostensibly as a protest against this piece, Aaron Barschak (who later became famous for gate-crashing 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' work often references work by earlier artists. As well as pieces based directly on Goya, much of their work has an affinity with that of Hieronymus Bosch, and they have also referenced pieces by William Blake, Auguste Rodin and Nicolas Poussin. In Ubermensch (1995), a sculpture of Stephen Hawking sat precariously on top of a cliff; this has been seen as a reference to Edwin Landseer's Monarch of the Glen.
Jake Chapman has published a number of catalogue essays and pieces of art criticism in his own right, as well as a book, Meatphysics (sic), published by 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. In 2004 they currated 'A Nightmare Before Christmas' as part of the occasional All Tomorrow's Parties music festival at Camber Sands.
The Chapman brothers were nominated for the Turner Prize in 2003. As well as including Insult to Injury the show 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 might be described as showing 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 (in the style of those found in joke shops) swarm over the entireity of the piece. Death Appears to depict two sex dolls, placed on top of each other, head-to-toe in the 69 sex position. Despite both pieces appearing to be made of plastic they were in fact both cast in bronze.
On 24 May 2004, a fire in a storage warehouse destroyed many works from the Saatchi collection including Hell. The brothers subsequently claimed they intended to remake the work.
Trivia
Jake Chapman has been romantically linked to Kate Moss and dated Kylie Minogue for a time. Following the end of their relationship he acquired a small non-breed black bitch dog that he calls 'Kylie'.
Jake Chapman married the model Rosemary Ferguson (a friend of Kate Moss) in Hawksmoor, Christ Church in Spitalfield, East London in 2004. Guests at the wedding included Moss, Sadie Frost, Meg Matthews and Sam Taylor-Wood. She gave birth to their first child the following year.
Dinos Chapman is married to Tiphaine de Lussey, who runs the children's clothes label Miss Fleur. The couple have two daughters.
