Visit to the Chapman's studio
"Arriving at the studio I was struck by the unassuming charakter of the operation; Dinos Chapman and a trio of assistants were eating a pasta lunch in an upstairs kitchen. In the main space, long benches were laid out with raw materials: model birds pinioned in a polystyrene block, tiny black dogs frozen in mid-stride, shrunken Waffen SS-men in field grey overcoats caught at topsy-turvy angels - are they hunters or the hunted in this greyish show? The half-completed details of what will be, presumably, the 'Hell' piece that succeds 'End of Fun', included a gelateria mound of miniature copies, hundreds of them melting into an inhuman sludge", writes novelist Wilf Self after his visit to the old Chapman's atelier in East London. We neither met Dinos nor Jake because he was caught up in a traffic jam, but the rest of Self's description fits perfectly.
The new studio in Hackney Wick is smaller than the old one - to be honest you wouldn't expect it to be that small. Instead of being upstairs the kitchen is on the ground floor and one of the assistants was cooking a pasta while we arrived at the studio. Waiting for Jake we were allowed to enter the magazin with hundreds of 1:32-scale model soldiers, naked mutants, Ronald McDonald's and wild animals pinned to styrofaom boards.
to be contiued
(next series is about how one of the little Hitlers - "pinioned in a polystryrene block" together with a grey shark - went on a journey)
