Dimensions: image: 228 x 78 mm
Copyright: © Jake and Dinos Chapman | CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 DEED, Photo: Tate
Curator: Alright, let's talk about this Exquisite Corpse by Jake Chapman. It's a striking etching, small in scale, held in the Tate Collections. What jumps out at you? Editor: Well, it’s unsettling, isn't it? That bizarre, almost insectoid creature with the tangle of limbs and the… is that a foetus in its torso? It feels like a fever dream. Curator: Chapman's work often engages with the grotesque, challenging conventional notions of beauty and decorum. The title itself alludes to a surrealist game, suggesting a collaborative and somewhat chaotic creation. Editor: Right. So, it's playing with ideas of hybridity and the abject. I wonder how this piece was received critically. It feels like a direct confrontation of social norms. Curator: I think that’s a fair assessment. Chapman consistently used imagery to provoke discourse about institutional power. Editor: It certainly stuck with me. Curator: It is hard to forget. Thanks for your insight.
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This series of prints is based on a game called Exquisite Corpse, a version of Consequences which was developed by the Surrealists. The players take turns to draw part of a body onto a piece of paper, which has been folded horizontally to hide what the other players have drawn. The result is a body of composite parts. These etchings feature comic-horror imagery typical of the Chapmans’ work: skulls, eyeballs on stalks, grotesque animal heads, liquids dripping and spurting from wounds, orifices, nipples and heads, writhing intestines, and claw-like hands and feet. Gallery label, September 2004
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