Chapman at Mason's Yard. Cliche all the way.

You may remember that I was absolutely mad about the Jake or Dinos Chapman exhibition at The White Cube in Hoxton Square so I fully expected Mason's yard to be fantastic too. What a disappointment!
It verged on the tacky, crude and gaudy. Was kitsch in a bad way and just NOT COOL. Maybe my tastes have done a U-Turn and it was still disturbing. But for the wrong reasons.
  I was quite impressed by the Bosch style painting.. the guys have talent and the drawing was almost exquisite but the model of the CLAN member with a massive hard - on. Not good.  :(
   I was impressed by the Hoxton Square show because of it' slack of cliche. Mason's Yard was the opposite. Maybe still worth a viewing... who knows. It's free...

Art that really SHOCKED me

Before i found out about Amy Winehouse's tragic death on Saturday what I really wanted to write about was what shocked me face to face. There is a lot of art  out there that is supposedly meant to shock. Most of it, in reality, might be amazing art, might be art that I love, but it doesn't shock! Sex is exciting not shocking. Swearing just a part of the every day human language. Religion discussed.... Politics obvious! I must admit, even a water boarding  (torture technique) performance installation at the recent Goldsmiths showcase didn't shock me. It was too obvious, too tacky. What really shocks me is when I feel. When I feel disgusted, uneasy, shocked...at god knows what. When art is the unexpected.
  On saturday I walked in to the White Cube on Hoxton Square for the "Jake or Dinos Chapman" exhibition. A show put on in both White Cube's (I haven't been to Mason's Yard yet - but can't wait) in which the tow brothers have both made art separately from one another for one another but we don't know whose is who. Anyway I walked in and it was busy. There were some interesting paintings on the wall and some intricate sculptures. They didn't really mean anything to me. A mix of contemporary and african art by the looks of it. Fairly fun ... and then I noticed this group of school children at the end of the room. I thought to myself "Odd place for a school trip (they were very small looking - so i assumed must be young) especially on a saturday." And then in struck me. they were all ever so perculiar. Ever so still. Ever so intimidating. They weren't real!
  This made me feel incredibly uneasy. I don't know why. I couldn't stop staring and I hadn't even seen there fronts yet. I walked round and here it becomes obvious they aren't real but there is certainly some sort of life in them. They are a presence. A very REAL presence. I wont tell you about there faces. They aren't normal faces. But you have to go and see. It is the feeling that shocks. It is not the Nazi content or the distortion but just the fact they are there. Quite frankly I can't get over it. The press release has it just right "It is the attack on the body". The body of everyone.

It isn't there in the picture

"The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to corollate all its contents"

    Dinos Chapman from the book "Nothing they Teach us"