I've always wanted to see the Chapman Brothers vast Hell diorama. I never got the chance as it was destroyed in a warehouse fire, along with Emin's Tent, and other major pieces of contemporary art owned by Charles Saatchi. Then they made Fucking Hell, and a number of other related dioramas of which The Sum Of All Evil is on display at the Jerwood. The work is contained in three large glass walled cases - the 'battlegrounds' raised up to waist height for a close inspection of the thousands of figurines - mostly engaged in torture and destruction. The majority of them are wearing Nazi uniforms - a theme that is used in all the other Chapman Brother's dioramas too.
A great deal of time can be spent absorbing the detail. Little scenes unfold against the larger tableau. In one of the cases a series of Capitalist Ronald McDonalds are being crucified by the Nazis; in a remote corner a blue cartoon figure from a happy meal is engaged in bulldozing a mass of naked dead bodies down an embankment; meanwhile Adolf Hitler quietly strolls alone through the trees, clutching some party balloons. A game of spot the Hitler ensues as I move around the cases. He is always tucked away in a quiet corner somewhere - just getting on with the business of destroying humanity. It always amazes me how willing the horde can be to do the work of psychopaths for them. Just who are the evil ones?
I know that the Hitler and Nazi figures are not to be taken too literally in this piece - but they play a big part; usually directing the larger operations of a scene, such as dealing with the lines of people queueing to be disemboweled or have their heads chopped off at the sideshow stalls in one of the other cases. Some of the Nazi soldiers have deteriorated into half skeletons. That doesn't stop them from doing their jobs though. The naked horde are still moved along the queue to their inevitable fate. The Nazi skeletons tell me that like the Hell diorama, all these figures are already dead too - presumable they're being tortured and ripped apart for eternity. Some of the body parts seemed to be reassembled into larger, human like, structures that have multiple heads or arms; weird twisted balls of walking limbs that seem to tower over and terrorise the horde wherever they go.
The Chapman Brothers also had other work on display; bronze sculptures of mechanical contraptions that consist of pulleys and levers that operate machinery to mutilate and maim. My favourite was 'The Little Death' a rather romantic and strange French phrase to describe the human orgasm. Sure enough the contraption consisted of a brain about to be hit by a hammer that would send signals to an attached penis to ejaculate into another brain. As the orgasm is considered to begin in the brain I thought it was quite a clever piece of work.
In another room a false ceiling had been installed at such a low height that it was impossible to walk without almost bending double. A single, small, oil painting hung on the far wall and after scrambling across the floor, finally on your knees before it, the fruit of all your effort and contortions, the viewer is confronted by an original oil painting by Adolf Hilter. 'Fuck Me' was my first thought - followed by shock and feeling slightly miffed into being tricked into this position of worship to kneel before a piece of dodgy art by an evil madman. Very clever.
As an exhibition I'd recommend it. A fun day out to be had by all...
The work is epic, grim, funny, thought provoking, enjoyable. There is a Guardian review of the whole show here:
Guardian Review
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