Eat Your Mind (discussing the Chapman Brother's "Come and See")

The Chapman brother's latest exhibition at the Serpentine Gallery, titled "Come and See" is a bombardment of shock and horror. The first thing you meet with are the infamous "hellscapes"; tiny massacres in a box that allow you a gods-eye view of tiny ant sized humans in various states of disembodiment and torture. I found it easy to get lost in the sheer scale and detail of these works, hundreds upon hundreds of minuscule models all piled up, sewn together and fighting each other.

Among the dark Nazi skeletons and mutant four-armed head creatures, are the unlikely positioned McDonald's characters. During an interview with the Standard, November 2013, Dinos Chapman talks about the importance of humour in their work; he says that it shouldn't be thought of as a lesser response and that it can be used to make the most horrific of situations no longer horrific. In the same interview Jake Chapman talks about addressing the "general depoliticization" of our culture; he says that "when you realize the lack of power that anyone has in a democratic country, you realize we're fucked. All we can do is instigate certain disruptions on a myopically tiny level." In a sense it is commenting on the power we have, or lack of it - mannequin Ku Klux Klansmen with rainbow coloured socks stand by our sides enjoying the same art as us, suggesting we're no better than they are. On a smaller scale it comments on morality; will you sit by and watch as your fellow humans are mistreated or will you have the courage to stand up and change what's happening? The Chapman Brothers push your senses to the limit, leaving you outraged but unable to look away.

There is a quote written around the wall that reads "get rid of meaning, your mind is a nightmare that has been eating you; now eat your mind." The quote, which comes from Kathy Acker's Empire of The Senseless suggests the Chapman Brother's want us to remove meaning, to see what is really in front of us. The exhibition title "Come and see" is supposedly named after Elem Klimov's 1985 soviet war drama/psychological thriller film of the same name. It is about and occurs during the Nazi German occupation of the Byelorussian SSR and in turn got it's name from The Book of Revelation in which "come and see" is said repeatedly as an invitation to look upon the destruction caused by the four horsemen of the apocalypse. Jake and Dinos Chapman are inviting us to see horror and ask ourselves what part we play in it.