The Whimper

Following on from their untitled and 'improved' version of Francisco de Goya's Disasters of War series, a monumental work based on an original portfolio of the Spanish artist's grotesque and incredibly powerful images of war, the Chapman Brothers have now entered the realms of a more modern art history. The subsequent paintings, of which The Whimper is one of the first, will take even further steps along the road that has been well-travelled by many artists throughout the two hundred years that separates us from Goya. What distinguishes this series of works from the prints is the element of subversive humour. Using the most obvious source material, which they have had in their studio for some time, Jake and Dinos take a great masterpiece by Munch and turn it into something kitsch and funny. The Scream is one of the most recognisable images of 20th Century art, so much so that when a version was recently stolen and returned the headlines reverberated around the world. Unlike Warhol, another of Munch's great admirers, who silkscreened the original image entirely and only altered the colours, the brothers have turned the tortured central figure into a floppy-eared puppy. Here is a monumental retaliation against today's society, a society that is bombarded by an almost infinite resource of images and knowledge, that this image, so recognisable to us all, will only be noticed by the viewer as being different on second glance.