Jake and Dinos Chapman review a hilarious, horrifying orgy of darkness

Jerwood Gallery, Hastings
From copulating plastic dinosaurs to crucified Ronald McDonalds and the severed feet of God, the arch-provocateurs teeming macabre landscapes offer a powerful vision of modern brutality

Jake Chapman is looking down from the balcony of the Jerwood Gallery in Hastings on to a pebbled beach scene with fishing boats and seafood stalls. The seaside towns quaint old quarter is, he insists, all trompe loeil. He points to a sign on a fish-sellers hut that he interprets to mean all its produce comes from Lidl. The boats on the horizon are cardboard cutouts, he says.

The Chapman brothers, arch-provocateurs of Young British Art, have returned to their hometown to put on a bold exhibition titled In the Realm of the Unmentionable at its beachside art gallery. It seems a generous, affectionate gesture to come back to the place where they grew up and which is so keen to welcome them that locals have crowdsourced nearly £30,000 to fund the show. Yet they just cant be sentimental about growing up here.

Continue reading...