Inside the Death Drive ─ Excess and Apocalypse in the World of the Chapman Brothers

Tate Liverpool Critical Forum, Volume 11

The Tate Liverpool Criteria Forum series was established to present papers given at annual academic conferences organized jointly by Tate Liverpool and the University of Liverpool, and related to a current exhibition in the gallery. The conferences and the series thus represent a collaborative effort by Tate Liverpool and the University of Liverpool to focus attention on the dynamic construction of art histories as stimulated by the act of exposition.

Inside the Death Drive

Excess and Apocalypse in the World of the Chapman Brothers

Edited by Jonathan Harris

Brothers Jake and Dinos Chapman enrage some with their art and reduce others to hysterics, but no one is neutral about two of Britain's most outstanding artistic provocateurs. Inside the Death Drive critically assesses the work of one of the art world's most creative and controversial duos. It includes a specially commissioned interview with Jake Chapman and features essays from leading international art scholars and commentators. These writers address the oeuvre of the Chapmans from a variety of critical standpoints, examining psychoanalytic, political, semiotic, popular-cultural, philosophical, and aesthetic depths and surfaces of the brothers' graphic, sculptural and installation artefacts. In addition, four essays extend the discussion historically and theoretically by considering other artists who have attempted to deal with some of the varieties of modern horror, including the ethno-genocide of North American indigenous peoples (Rebecca Belmore, Faye HeavyShield), Nazi concentration camps (Lee Miller), abortion (Tracy Emin) and dehumanisation (the Russian collective AES+F).

Jonathan Harris is Professor of Art History the university of Liverpool and the director of its Centre for Architecture and the Visual Arts. He is the author or editor of more than a dozen books. He is series editor for Critical Forum books and Value: Art: Politics, also published by Liverpool University Press.