Jake and Dinos Chapman’s solo show “The Disasters of Everyday Life” channeled modern anxiety; the artists, known for their longtime dedication to the issues of organized violence, addressed the contemporary and historic imagery of terror. The exhibition consisted of a trio of works based on actual sets of Francisco Goya’s “Disasters of War” etchings (first published in 1863), as well as seven bronze sculptures of vests adorned with explosives: Life and Death Vests I–VII, 2017.
In the series of etchings, Goya—a prominent figure in the Chapman brothers’ artistic output (they have bought six sets of his prints in total)—portrayed the atrocities he allegedly witnessed throughout the Napoleonic occupation of Spain during the Peninsular War in the early nineteenth century. The series, which contains eighty prints, oscillates between reality and allegory; the etchings depict executions, corpses strapped to trees, limbs and heads ornamenting branches, and birds gnawing at cadavers. In an audacious move that should shock traditionalists, the Chapman brothers have made their own additions to Goya’s original etchings, using different materials for each set: watercolor (The Disasters of War on Terror, 2015–16), glitter paint (The Disasters of Yoga, 2017), and collaged photographs (The Disasters of Everyday Life, 2017).
The artists’ interventions emphasize the elements that make Goya’s intimate works some of the most powerful depictions of modern horror, whether it is the veracity of disfigured silhouettes, the cold and monochromatic color palette, or the serial, indexical nature of the pictures. In The Disasters of War on Terror, the artists introduce cartoonish cats, teddy bears, and frogs—heroes known from their earlier works—and cover several scenes with white dots mimicking snow (Goya achieved a similar effect in several of his prints by using powdered resin during the aquatint process). The collaged elements in The Disasters of Everyday Life include photographs of families, children, dogs, and cars placed onto Goya’s prints, establishing a familiar modern society as foreground within these brutal settings. In The Disasters of Yoga, bright glitter paint softens the contours of the scenes, making some of the images almost impossible to decipher. The result is disturbingly dreamlike.
The power of the vest sculptures, on the other hand, lies in their detailed realism. In Life and Death Vest II, for example, one can see wires, tape keeping the elements together, multiple kinds of explosives, and an old Nokia phone serving as a detonator, all cast precisely. The vests—except for Life and Death Vest I (Rush Hour), a bronze replica of the garment used by Jackie Chan in the eponymous film—are creations from the artists’ imaginations based on images gleaned from news reports. While the works may recall the vests worn by suicide bombers, the ambiguous title adds a different valence—the life vest can be seen as a symbol of hope.
This new series of work is also personal to the artists: Jake Chapman reportedly got involved in the rescue mission in the Mediterranean in 2015 by donating a lifeboat to a Greek volunteer team; he also openly criticized Ai Weiwei’s photograph restaging the death of Aylan Kurdi, a Syrian toddler. Unlike Ai’s controversial picture, the works that were on view in this show do not refer to a specific time or place. In their oblique approach to the refugee crisis, they brilliantly reiterate the timelessness of terror.
—Sylwia Serafinowicz
