
Not on display
- Artists
-
Jake Chapman born 1966
Dinos Chapman born 1962 - Medium
- Plastic, polyester resin, synthetic fibres, wood and guitar strings
- Dimensions
- Displayed: 1300 × 2000 × 2000 mm
- Collection
- Tate
- Acquisition
- Purchased 1998
- Reference
- T07454
Summary
The Chapman brothers have worked as a collaborative team since the early 1990s. Disasters of War was their first major work. It is a one in thirty-second-scale model based on a portfolio of etchings by Goya (Fransisco de Goya y Lucientes, 1746-1819), of the same title, depicting the atrocities of war experienced and witnessed during and after the Napoleonic invasions of Spain in 1808. Goya's eighty-three etchings contain scenes of brutality and horror such as bayonetting, mutilation and decapitation. The Chapmans have translated each of the etchings into a three-dimensional tableau made of hybrid toy figures which have been pieced together from various sources and painted over. Goya's dark settings have been replaced by clumps of simulated grass of the type used in architectural models. Each miniature scene is set on a grass-covered island of irregular form; the islands are clustered together on a large white plinth and covered by a perspex box.
The connection between making toy soldiers and making mannequins seemed to be the only way to maintain a relationship between found objects or readymade, which we could manipulate
Disasters of War
was made with the intention of detracting from the expressionist qualities of a Goya drawing and trying to find the most neurotic medium possible, which we perceived as models. It gave us a sense of omnipotence to chop these toys up.
(Jake Chapman quoted in Maloney, p.64.)
By bringing together Goya's eighty-three part series of etchings into one entity, in which all parts are simultaneously visible, the Chapmans' Disasters of War suggests a reduction and encapsulation of events of momentous emotional impact. The tiny size and anodyne manufactured appearance of the figures transform the horror of the original material into the representation of a war among toys, a comic-strip rendition of brutality. Both the large white plinth, which provides a broad margin between the figures and the viewer, and the perspex box, which seals the figures off from the viewer, add to the reductive and distancing effects of the work. The Chapmans have said: 'We fantasise about producing things with zero cultural value, to produce aesthetic inertia' (quoted in Unholy Libel, p.149). This work, like their subsequent Hell 2000 (Saatchi Collection, London), stages a neurotic fixation with an ironic edge: the hours of careful work required to cut up and reconstitute the little figures to represent grotesque human acts in a time of social uncontrol. Disasters of War reflects the detachment of Western societies from the realities of war-time killing, both through computer and missile technology (which have produced weapons that fire long range and permit operational distance) and through the comfortable spectatorship provided by television and the film industry.
Further reading:
Chapmanworld, exhibition catalogue, ICA, London 1996, [pp.46-7], reproduced (colour) [pp.28-9]
Unholy Libel: Six Feet Under; exhibition catalogue, Gagosian Gallery, New York 1997, reproduced (colour) fig.xvii [pp.98-9]
Martin Maloney, 'The Chapman Bros.: When will I be Famous', Flash Art, no.186, Jan.-Feb. 1996, pp.64-7, reproduced (colour, detail) p.67
Elizabeth Manchester
May 2000
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Display caption
Brothers Jake and Dinos Chapman have been a vital, if controversial force in British art of the 1990s. Disasters of War was their first major collaborative project. It is characteristic of their confrontational and visceral approach to themes such as death, violence and sexuality. Gruesomely detailed, it is a three-dimensional reworking of Disasters of War,1810-13, a portfolio of etchings by Spanish artist, Francisco Goya (1746-1828). The toy-like scale of the Chapmans' work at first appears to undermine the epic notion of war, yet in fact gives a strange intensity to the horrors of battle.
The Tate Collection acquired this work in recognition of the Chapman's importance within the generation of British artists which emerged in the 1990s.
Gallery label, August 2004
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Technique and condition
This work is an assemblage of eighty-three small mixed media sculptures composed of bought, reformed and modelled elements. The sculpture is made of a variety of materials, mostly plastics.
The majority of the figures are made from an injected moulded plastic. Other parts have been modelled. As artist Jake Chapman explained in an interview in July 1998, most of the figures and accessories used for kit model making were bought from hobby shops. The artists then reformed the parts by cutting them with hot knives before gluing them back together with Super glue or epoxy resin glues. The naked figures were made by stripping figures of their clothes with scalpels. Some of the parts and figures, for example the clothes and baby figures, were modelled by the artists with an epoxy putty called Milliput. The bases for all the units were modelled with polyester resin. The figures were fixed to them by pushing them in the resin as it cured. The bases were then painted with enamel paint, sprinkled with grit. The grass, made from synthetic fibres, was adhered to the top of the grit with PVA glue. All the figures have been painted with enamel paint bought from a hobby shop.
Upon acquisition, the work arrived in a good condition. A few loose parts had to be consolidated and two parts needed to be fixed back into position. In order to prevent viewers from touching the pieces and to protect the work form dust, Jake Chapman has agreed to display the work under a clear Perspex cover.
In the future, the plastics and epoxy resin might continue to change. It is possible that the paint might lift and flake in certain areas with time. The artist has agreed to have the paint consolidated and retouched if necessary, and should some cracks appear on any of the pieces, the artist has specified he wants them to be filled.
Michẻle Lepage / Bryony Bery
May 2000 / April 2004
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