Jake and Dinos Chapman have opened a pop-up store, titled “Fucking Hell,” in the heart of Amsterdam’s Red Light District.  The store contains a number of interesting art works and projects.  In one corner, a visitor can buy an original drawing by Jake Chapman, tattooed on their skin.  (more…)
The Telegraph reports that “Piggyback” (1997), a sculpture by Jake and Dinos Chapman has been removed from the MAXXI contemporary art museum in Rome by Italian officials. The sculpture depicts two nude girls, one straddling the other’s shoulders, and had been flagged by the Italian Observatory on the Rights of a Child as “paedopornographic”. Although MAXXI elected to remove the sculpture from public display, the museum maintained their support of the brothers’ and other artists’ freedom to create controversial art. (more…)
In a conversation with The Independent, artist Jake Chapman discusses crowdfunding art shows and the more general role of the public in the art world. The conversation was precipitated by the Chapman Brothers‘ unorthodox funding strategy for their upcoming show at the Jerwood gallery: offering tattoos in exchange for donations.  One of the leading figures of the Young British Artists, Chapman promotes the need to “defend art from popularity and popularity from art” and maintains that “popular decisions are not always the right decisions”. (more…)
Jake and Dinos Chapman, The Sum of all Evil (2012-2013), via Serpentine Sackler
An exhibition of Jake and Dinos Chapman, the English brothers turned artistic-collaborators, is currently on view at the Serpentine Sackler Gallery in London’s Hyde Park through February 9.  Titled Come and See, the show is something of a magnum opus – the Chapmans display an interest in any and all media, from painting to film. Their cheeky disregard to a medium-centric practice allows them to mesh subject material in mock conspiracy-theory style. Posed KKK members, McDonald’s characters and scenes of war and chaos reminiscent of Urs Graf or their frequent muse, Francisco Goya are assembled in an “overtly-designed-chaos†where homage and meaning are tossed about for the sake of pointed caricature. (more…)
Jake & Dinos Chapman, The Sum of All Evil (Installation View), courtesy White Cube Hong Kong
Currently at Hong Kong’s White Cube, British artists Jake & Dinos Chapman are exhibited The Sum of All Evil, the artists’ first in China, including a group of lurid, bizarre dioramas alongside their familiar series of “reworked paintings.”
Jake & Dinos Chapman, One Day You Will No Longer Be Loved (that it should come to this…) (2010), via White Cube
Jake and Dinos Chapman, Great deeds – against the dead!, (2003), via Yoshii Gallery
From May 1st until June 29th the Yoshii Gallery, New York is exhibiting a series of works entitled Insult to Injury by Jake and Dinos Chapman. For Insult to Injury, the artists reworked Francisco de Goya’s The Disasters of War, a set of 80 etchings, by changing all the visible faces of victims to heads of clowns and puppies.
Jake and Dinos Chapman, Nobody Knows Why, (2003), via Yoshii Gallery
Artists Jake and Dinos Chapman will bring three monumental dinosaur sculptures to London this summer, part of a series of sculptural installations that will also include work by Antony Gormley and Robert Indiana.  “Art is an essential part of vitality of the City of London, a draw for workers and visitors alike, a major contributing factor in our economic vibrancy and the kernel of the cultural brio of the Square Mile.”  Says John Scott, chairman of the City of London Corporation’s arts advisory board. (more…)
Jake and Dinos Chapman, The Sum of all Evil, (2012-2013), Courtesy of the artists and White Cube via Pinchuk Art Centre
Jake and Dino Chapman are currently presenting Chicken, their first solo show in the Ukraine, at the Pinchuk Art Centre, Kiev. The exhibition is centered around a new installation, titled The Sum of all Evil (2013), that confronts violence, death and the Holocaust through a series of comically perverse tableaus. Additional works from the Chapman brother’s oevre are also on display, providing an artistic context to the brothers subversive black humor and embrace of taboo subject matter.
Jake and Dinos Chapman, The Sum of all Evil, (2012-2013), Courtesy of the artists and White Cube via Pinchuk Art Centre
The Guardian has published a lengthy piece on the role of the artist’s assistant, and assistant’s often ignored contributions to the work of major artists.  The piece features an interview with Jake and Dinos Chapman, who recall their early work as assistants to Gilbert and George.  ‘It was hard labour by any measure,” says Jake Chapman.  “There was absolutely no creative input at all. They were very polite and it was interesting to hear them talking – as we did our daily penance.” (more…)
Jake and Dinos Chapman, The End of Fun (2010), via White Cube Gallery
Since their graduation from the Royal College of Art in 1990, brothers Jake and Dinos Chapman have continually pushed the envelope with their iconoclastic, ambitious sculptures. Â Frequently incorporating what they call “bankrupt” imagery, so frequently used by contemporary that it has lost much of its original meaning, the artists create large-scale sculptural works that have frequently drawn fierce reactions from critics and gallery visitors.
Jake and Dinos Chapman, The End of Fun (2010), via State Hermitage Museum (more…)
“The End of Fun”, an exhibition by Jake and Dinos Chapman at the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, contains both Nazi and religious imagery, which may have violated Russia’s laws regarding extremism. (Earlier this year the members of the punk band Pussy Riot were jailed for such an offense). The Hermitage staff explained the conceptual ideas behind the work in the [aptly titled] exhibition to prosecutors, but no details yet on whether or not they will pursue the case.
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Maurizio Cattelan, “Catttelan,” 1994, neon, 90 x 47 x 3.5; 40 x 40 x 3.5, Courtesy Collezione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo
On September 25th 2012, the Whitechapel Gallery in London opened a special exhibition composed of works from the Collection Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, one of the most prominent private collections in Europe. The gallery’s year-long series, Think Twice, is divided into four parts, the first of which is dedicated to works of Maurizio Cattelan – many of which have not been seen in the UK for over 20 years – on display until December 2nd, 2012.
Maurizio Cattelan, “Bidibidobidiboo,” 1996, Taxidermied squirrel, ceramic, Formica, wood, paint and steel, Courtesy Collezione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo
Jake and Dinos Chapman have created an effigy of Hitler as part of part of the Grundy Art Gallery’s Adventureland Golf exhibition, which features art works as holes on an imaginary golf course. The work has stirred up a debate, causing those on the Board of Deputies of British Jews to call the work “tasteless.” Known for their controversial work, the gallery described the Chapman Brothers’ piece as “the powerful image of the Nazi regime within the context of holiday fun and in doing so making reference to the British wartime spirit of making humour at the Fuhrer’s expense.”
‪‬Yayoi Kusama and Phyllida Barlow to create new works for first Kiev International Biennale, titled ‘The Best of Times, The Worst of Times. Rebirth and Apocalypse in Contemporary Art,’ to run May 24 through July 31, 2012, and also include works by Ai Weiwei, Louise Bourgeois, Chapman Bros, and Paul McCarthy [AO Newslink]
Doug Aitken, Now (2011) at 303 Gallery NY. All photos for Art Observed by Caroline Claisse.
AO is on site in London for this week’s Frieze Art Fair. With 173 galleries selling an estimated $350 million worth of art, a level of anxiety pervades as the week’s results will be indicative of the overall international contemporary art market. Works like Christian Jankowski’s droll The Finest Art on Water and Michael Landy’s Credit Card Destroying Machine directly comment on the world economic state, while the overall demeanor remains upbeat, with art world moguls and A-list celebrities enjoying the festivities.
Michael Landy’s Credit Card Destroying Machine (2011), Thomas Dane Gallery
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Dasha Zhukova launches Garage magazine with fashion/art collaborations from Jeff Koons, Damien Hirst, John Baldessari, Raymond Pettibon, Jake & Dinos Chapman, Paul McCarthy and Richard Prince [AO Newslink]
All images installation views of Jake or Dinos Chapman at White Cube, 2011. Courtesy Coco Bayley for Art Observed.
Jake and Dinos Chapman – The Chapman Brothers – reinstated themselves in the London art scene last week, across the twoWhite Cube galleries. Both the Mason’s Yard and Hoxton gallery spaces are used in this double act, double venue exhibition. The show, Jake or Dinos Chapman, runs from the 15th of July to September 17th and is alarmingly extensive. The brothers are infamous for their elaborate teasing, deliberate vulgarity, and mocking of aestheticism- this show is no different. However, for the White Cube exhibition, Jake and Dinos Chapman, who have consistently worked together professionally and are known as a gruesome twosome double act, have this year separated and worked alone. Using different studio spaces, they have been working independently on the content of this exhibition, only having revealed their pieces to one another a few weeks ago.
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Inside the Bermondsey Street warehouse, via NovaLoca
London art dealer Jay Jopling has just announced that the former Recall warehouse in Bermondsey Street will soon be converted to a gallery under his White Cube umbrella. Jopling, through White Cube, represents such artists as Jake & Dinos Chapman, Tracey Emin, Damien Hirst, Gary Hume, Marc Quinn and his former wife Sam Taylor-Wood, among others.
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Jay Jopling, via The Rich Life
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Another view of the main lobby, A Scott Campbell “tropical fantasy” (represented by the Miami based OHWOW Gallery) is the top center work
Art Observed was on site at the Soho Beach House Miami during the week of Art Basel Miami Beach for a tour of the 150 work art collection assembled for the private club and hotel.   Keeping a close connection with the artistic community has been an important part of the strategy for the Soho house brand, which has multiple locations in England as well as in New York and newly in Los Angeles, Berlin and Miami Beach.  This week marked the first Art Basel Miami Beach for the location and it hit the ground running, hosting some important events such as dinners for White Cube and Victoria Miro galleries and a W Magazine event.
A John Baldessari on the left and a Friends With You on the right, in a hallway on the main floor
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Tragic Anatomies (1996) by Jake and Dinos Chapman, via Artnet
Renowned advertising tycoon and art collector Charles Saatchi, 67, announced today that he would gift the Saatchi Gallery and over 200 works of art to the nation. Located in the Duke of York Square in Chelsea, the gallery will be renamed the Museum of Contemporary Art London in 2012 once Saatchi retires. The works which will be donated total more than $37.5 million and are situated in a 70,000 square foot gallery, one of the largest spaces in the world. Among the works to be donated include Tracey Emin‘s “My Bed” (1998), Jake and Dinos Chapman‘s “Tragic Anatomies” (1996), Richard Wilson’s oil room (1987), and Kader Attia‘s “Ghost” (2007).
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Installation View All photographs are via Gagosian Gallery unless otherwise noted
Currently on view at Gagosian Gallery, 6-24 Britannia street, London is the exhibition titled “Crash, Homage to J.G. Ballard” , a group show dedicated, as the name suggests, to the oeuvre of J.D. Ballard, a prominent British novelist and short-story writer, a representative of the New Wave movement in science fiction. The exhibition was put together to pay tribute to the enormous cultural influence of J.D. Ballard’s fiction on many visual artists. The impressive selection of works by such prominent artists as Ed Ruscha, Richard Hamilton, AndyWarhol and Helmut Newton illustrates profound engagement of the writer with the works of visual artists of his generation and their mutual influence.
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Hell 63 Years B.C. (2009), by Jake and Dinos Chapman, via Contemporary Fine Arts Berlin
Currently on view at Contemporary Fine Arts in Berlin is ‘Shitrospective’, the gallery’s first solo show by Jake and Dinos Chapman. In this exhibition the Chapman brothers recreate the most important sculptures and installations from their career together in miniature format made in cardboard and poster paint.
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Head of a Muse, Raphael via Guardian UK
-Offered for the first time at public auction as part of Christie’s Old Masters sale, Raphael’s drawing “Head of a Muse”- a study for a figure in one of his Vatican frescoes, if it achieves its estimate £12-16million, will break the auction record for an old master drawing currently held by Michelangelo’s and Leonardo da Vinci’s works [Guardian UK]
-As art collectors become more cautious with their purchases, dealers at Frieze and FIAC fairs put works on reserve, among them $40 million Mondrian allegedly put on hold for Bernard Arnault [Bloomberg]
-Ms. Temkin, the chief curator of painting and sculpture at The Museum of Modern Art in New York, introduces unexpected changes, unframing certain paintings and subjecting the almost sacralized permanent collection to frequent renewal [The New York Times]
“Your Mercury Ocean” Skateboard by Olafur Eliasson via aarting
-Another collaboration between Mekanism and Olafur Eliasson results in a 13-ply deck 3d patterned skateboard with a mirror coating [aarting]
-In related, Olafur Eliasson commissions by the mayor of Copenhagen to design a bridge for the Danish capital; the artist shares his plans for a transparent bridge in a close vicinity to the water [The Art Newspaper]
– The survey carried out by the Art Fund, the UK’s independent art charity, shows that despite the substantial drop in public funding and investment income, a figure that proves to grow in the context of economic fall is the number of visits to museums [Art Knowledge News]
-In the midst of economic uncertainty, gallery Matthew Marks, which represents artists such as Jasper Johns, and Peter Fischli and David Weiss, plans on expansion with a new space on the West Coast [The New York Times]
To stay apprised of most of the relevant art news for this past week… (more…)
Afro Apparition, Chris Ofili (b.1968) all pictures from Sotheby’s unless otherwise noted.
Today Sotheby’s London held their October Contemporary Art Auction to coincide with Frieze Art Fair which is currently underway in London’s Regent’s Park and art observed was on site with coverage. The 223 lot auction comprised of work, in a range of media, by leading post-war artists such as Jean-Michel Basquiat, Chris Ofili, Gerhard Richter, Anish Kapoor, Damien Hirst, Frank Auerbach, Anthony Gormley, Farhad Moshiri and Yan Pei Ming. 73% of the contemporary works were sold and the eventual total of the sales came in at 12,757,125 GBP. All sale totals stated in this article include buyer’s premiums and come directly from Sotheby’s official website or courtesy of The Baer Faxt.
Fuego Flores, Jean-Michel Basquiat
Related Links:
Sotheby’s Homepage
Autumn Fairs are a Barometer for the Art Market [NYTimes]
Can Frieze reheat the art market? [The Independent]
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