Jake & Dinos Chapman: The End of Fun Hardcover – May 31, 2014

One of those must own art books. If you like the Chapmans.

They lie for the fun of it, practicing pretentious poser-ese with certain interviewers, then tightening up the jargon for games of intellectual abstraction that typically end up as an ourobouros of Foucalt, Greenberg, and Duchamp-laden circular discussion, never quite hammering anything down as a reliable reference point. They're f***ing liars, and they're good at f***ing with people's heads. They buy up Goya's very rare print portfolio's, to 'improve' the art, adding grotesquely painted faces to the black and white engravings. This is sacrilege to some Goya fans, enough that more than one person blew a gasket. That, of course, is the point. I'm a Goya fan myself, and so are the Chapmans. I think Goya might have approved of the chaos and controversy they have unleashed on a stagnant art scene, and flattered to be their inspiration and ammunition so often.They care about creating art that is drenched in context and emotional power, often returning to shock, always good for moments of pure reactionary anger, or laughter followed by guilt. This is bad art for bad people, straight up, b****, and I'm one bad f***er myself.Or I try to be... you know, sometimes. I can't be bad at work. Or when I'm in public. Or when anyone might see me. So I mostly get bad on Sunday afternoons in the basement, unless laundry has to be done. Usually it involves listening to ABBA at a crazy-loud volume. But I use headphones, because the guy next door has a screwed-up schedule, and has to leave at like 1:00 AM Monday morning, and I'm worried he might pummel me about the face and neck. Headphones sound better anyway.'The End of Fun' is a huge arrangement of vitrine-tanks, organized in the shape of a swastika when seen from above. Inside are thousands of corpses, zombies and walking skeletons, wandering around the richly detailed environments. Like its predecessor, 'F****** Hell' (and the original 'Hell', which was one of many works destroyed when an art-storage facility was set ablaze by an arsonist), the varied settings almost seem to be writhing with bodies and pieces of bodies. Steep, brush-covered embankments drop to a narrow strip of beach bristling with stakes, each one with an impaled SS Stormtrooper or severed body part. The water is dark, but skeletal faces can be seen under the waves. Stephen Hawking and Hitler are present, and so are Ronald McDonald and his less popular cohorts, like the Hamburglar and Mayor McCheese. Hawking and the McDonald's crew are busy with a thriving weed-trafficking concern. Hitler's still doing his own thing, following his artistic calling into the afterlife. The Zygotic hybrids are lurking inside dilapidated buildings or playing on brush-covered hilltops. This hell looks like a concentration camp crossed with a Japanese POW camp, with anamolous constructions and geological formations. If this hell is custom-made to subject the architects and executioners behind the Final Solution to an endless anti-Nazi holocaust, why is Hitler spared from the attention of the skeletal demons? Is painting his punishment?This monograph/exhibition catalog is a personal favorite, one of the coolest you're likely to see. It matches the format of the 'F****** Hell' catalog, 6" x 9", this time with a blue cloth-bound cover. Published by White Cube and FUEL, it features a brilliant 13-page introduction by novelist-essayist Will Self, and devotes over 160 pages to photographing the myriads upon myriads of tiny details that make this work so absolutely stunning. You can talk in circles about the meanings and motivations behind the horrific imagery, but if you can't appreciate the imagination and effort, this isn't for you. This celebrates the years of work behind the project, and regardless what they say, there is a child-like pride in creating something so audacious. 'The End of Fun' is the second of three works, so they're up to their old tricks again, the liars; there's plenty of fun still to come.

My daughter uses the Chapman books to cite some of her essay explanations. Exposing and realistic visuals which question even the most cynical of us