Jake and Dinos Chapman - Detail from - One Day You Will No Longer Be Loved

Jake and Dinos Chapman recently showed at White Cube in London in their first ‘non-collaborative’ show, where each worked separately on works isolated in their studios bringing their art together in the final stage of the exhibition: much like the working method of ‘exquisite corpse’ – the Surrealist game where each contributor adds his part to a drawing without revealing his artistic input to the other.

Their interest in shocking their audiences with puerile and playful provocations against bourgeois culture is evident in their sticking genitals on childrens’ and adults’ bodies in inappropriate places: In an interview with curator Norman Rosenthal at 92Y, Jake Chapman said, “Victoria Miro [their gallerist at the time] was a lovely demure bourgeois woman… Our interest was stimulation…we learned that if we called a sculpture ‘fuckface,’ it attained value – you could hear Victoria on the phone talking to some collector saying, “Yes, I can do you a fuckface, or a two-faced cunt.” We were interested in how far we could affect, invade bourgeois language…”

© Jake & Dinos Chapman – God does not love you O.M.F.G., White Cube gallery

Artist Jake Chapman, © Kisa Lala

Jack & Dinos Chapman – The milk of human weakness, White Cube gallery

Jake Chapman, who seems more overtly cerebral than his brother, talked about Goya as one of his inspirations citing him as one of the first modern artists. “He invents this rapt internal torment.” But Chapman believed Goya’s work was protected by the institutionalized belief in the humanistic content of the work – “What we were interested in was that, you could also look at the work as having a libidinized content that exceeded the institutional claims made about it. On one hand, the work could be confused as being an indictment of atrocities, and yet if you look closely at the work – the concentration of areas of violence [and genital areas], seems to betray a certain kind of pleasure.”

By recreating each of the 83 scenes in Goya’s etchings and depicting them in pathetic little plastic tableux, the brothers changed the existential quality of the work, belittling the works’ magnitude by using childish toys, and reducing it to play.

Fucking Hell, By Jake and Dinos Chapman

The Chapman brothers obviously enjoy the controversy they provoke but remain incredibly articulate in defending themselves. Speaking to Will Self, Jake Chapman exulted about DMT: “Makes you feel like a shrinky-dink in the oven – all shrivelled up. It was the most intense drug experience I’ve ever had – you become completely subjectless, there’s no you any more. It’s terrifying.”

© Jake and Dinos Chapman - One Day You Will No Longer Be Loved - That it Should Come to This... 2010 Oil on Canvas

On their music video for PJ Harvey, Jake Chapman said to the Guardian, “This formula, which demands you provide eye candy for ear candy, isn’t one we want to follow. For us, when you’re making art the point is to intervene in the formula. We’ve made two videos. The first, for the Peth, was basically a camera disappearing up Rhys Ifans’s arse. The second, Black Hearted Love, for PJ Harvey and John Parish, featured Polly jumping up and down on a bouncy castle, which undermines the rules of what a pop video should be….Making a pop video is obviously different to making art. While the time pressure is greater, that’s alleviated by the resources. It’s the difference between building the Eiffel tower and the pyramids: it all depends on how many slaves you’ve got…”

More Information: http://www.jakeanddinoschapman.com/

Kate MccGwire, Slick, 2010, Magpie and crow feathers, mixed media and antique fire basket, 250 x 250 cms

All Visual Arts, an arts organization based in London’s Fitzrovia, showed an exhibition of works at Frieze around the tradition of Vanitas, and the theme of memento mori, with art containing symbols and reminders of death. Joe La Placa, one of the curators behind the show, explained, “the original Vanitas works were a response to the culture of conspicuous consumption in Holland in the 17th Century, and a reminder that you can make all the money you want, but you can’t take it with you…”

Installation view of Kate MccGwire, Slick, 2010, Magpie and crow feathers at All Visual Arts exhibition 'Vanitas'

Artists created works on the subject of impermanence. Tom Gallant showed an incredibly detailed filigree screen, which on closer inspection revealed it was sourced from pornographic material, underscoring the transient nature of life, death and one’s relationship to sex.

Tom Gallant, Rose Window V (After Morris), 2010, Wood, glass, cork, collage, varnish, cut paper, taxidermist pins, 102 x 82 x 42 cms

Kate MccGwire whose work also recently shown at the Dead or Alive exhibition, at MAD museum in NYC, used magpie feathers to symbolize greed and avarice.

Bouke de Vries, Skull Face Mao, 2010, 20th-century Chinese porcelain bust and 21st-century bisque skulls, 67 x 23 x 53 cms

Bouke de Vries’ Mao Head with Skulls, a life-sized bust of Chairman Mao, was made out of tiny skulls of porcelain.

Wim Delvoye > Untitled (Car Tire # 2) > 2009 > Handcarved lorry tire > 77 x 27 cms

Tim Noble and Sue Webster – created works out of taxidermy, as did artist Polly Morgan whose art was constructed from a mass of stuffed blackbird heads.

Jake and Dinos Chapman, One Day you will no Longer be Loved (Again) - Miss Earle, 2010, Oil on Canvas > 73 x 63 cms

Hans Peter Feldman, 'Mother with Child' with Crossed Eyes, 2008, Found painting and oil paint, 91 x 80 cms

For more information All Visual Arts 33 Portland Place, London, W1

François Pinault with the architect Tadao Ando on the Grand Canal. Photo: Graziano Arici

At the entrance to the city of Venice, parting the waters between the Giudecca and the Grand Canal like a ship’s prow, is the Dogana di Mare, the Sea Custom House from 1677. The Dogana was the port of entry policing the lucrative trade from the Silk Road of exotic cargo from the Orient and a beacon of medieval power, like the Lighthouse of ancient Alexandria. Long neglected, this crumbling decaying watchtower reclaimed attention when it was sought by the Guggenheim Foundation,which with Zaha Hadid as architect, coveted its premises to host its own collection. But in the end, Venice favoured François Pinault’s plans, who, having dropped the Île Seguin project on the Seine, was looking for a second home for his private collections, already installed in the Palazzo Grassi across the canal.

Pinault chose Tadao Ando to construct a modern museum out of the ruins of the Dogana. Guidelines for historical preservation restricted modifications to the façade, and so to create a contemporary space, Mr. Ando created an inner wall, parallel and separate from the historical foundations matching the triangular tip of Dorsoduro Island. To keep the art dry, one of the difficult phases of renovation was to waterproof the shell of the building to protect against water damage from Venice’s notorious annual flooding during the Alta Aqua.

Punta Della Dogana, Charles Ray's Boy with Frog, 2009, and aerial view of tip.

Felix Gonzalez-Torres Untitled (Blood), 1992 and Maurizio Cattelan Untitled, 2007, Taxidermied horse

The triumphant awakening of the Punta Della Dogana from its hundred years of dormancy—coinciding with its first exhibition of artwork from Pinault’s own collection curated by Francesco Bonami and Alison M. Gingeras—called Mapping the Studio, which addresses the art’s trajectory from the private studio of the artist —via the collector—to the public domain of the viewer. Ms. Gingeras has also curated Pop Life at the Tate Modern recently, and Francesco Bonami is slated to be co-curator for the 2010 Whitney Biennial.

Stepping into the Dogana for the first time, I was struck by the minimalist grandeur of the interior, which is a melding of medieval brickwork with Ando’s austere vision. I passed through Felix Gonzalez-Torres’ scarlet-beaded curtain, hanging like drops of blood, into an entombed and autonomous world, futuristic and separate from the bustle of ancient Venice outside. Displayed on multiple levels, the collection is a tribute to Pinault’s exquisite taste and curatorial decisions, which play with architectural light and space. Jeff Koons’ Bourgeois Bust is silhouetted by the semi-circular windows, which frame the Venetian gondoliers below, serenading their love-boat passengers. Although the collection has scattered elements of whimsy—Maurzio Catellan’s taxidermied horse absurdly stuck on the wall (a reversal of a trophy head) and Cy Twombly’s colourful and calming frescos—there are works that demand darker contemplation, such as the Chapmen brothers, Fucking Hell and Paul McCarthy’s Train, Pig Island. The curators wed established artists with newer ones, along with works by the same artist spanning a passage of time that diverge in emotion. Alison Gingeras says of Pinault as a collector, “What is interesting is his choice to follow twenty artists. Not only is he loyal to them, but he also discerns what is new in their work. He tends to choose artists that evolve, who do not continually express the same message or produce the same works over and over.”

Jeff Koons, Bourgeois Bust – Jeff and Ilona, 1991, marble.

Outside at the prow of the building is Charles Ray’s Boy with Frog, commissioned by Pinault for the Punta della Dogana. It is a take on Donatello’s David (c1440), and instead of the head of Goliath he holds in his fists a frog, and captures in his wondrous gaze a sense of astonishment at his own creative prowess.

“Mapping the Studio: Artists from the François Pinault Collection,” Venice, Italy.  All installation Views and Photos Courtesy Punta della Dogana & © Palazzo Grassi SpA. Foto: ORCH, orsenigo_chemollo