JAKE & DINOS CHAPMAN (b. 1966 & b. 1962)

Jake and Dinos Chapman started working together in the early 1990s and have become one of the leading art partnerships in the contemporary British art world. Though their works may initially recall the immediate sexual shock value of Salvador Dalí, the Chapman brothers ultimately give resonant form to pre-adolescent male obsessions with fantasy forms of conflict, violence and mutation. The two artists, who play chess themselves, perceive the game as an intersection of warfare and play, linked to the fears and anxieties of childhood. Drawing inspiration from the transgressive gender-blurring sexual innuendo of Duchamp’s moustachioed Mona Lisa, their chess play becomes a slippery, catch-as-catch-can form of confrontation and ‘mating’. Like visions from a dream, the hyper-real level of detail lifts this chess set of pubescent nightmares from the realm of shock to one of profundity.

This work is accompanied by a certificate issued by the publisher.