Chapman Brothers and New art from Poland

I've been back in my home town of Hartlepool since saturday evening and after hammering my ds with my meaty thumbs for roughly 18 hours straight, I decided I needed to start making the most of this easter break!

I harrass my beautiful friend CatJess for something to do and skidaddle to her house to catch a lift to the Durham Art Gallery for the Chapman Brothers exhibit there. I've seen the Chapman brothers work before in Liverpool Tate but, you know I can't get enough of kids with penises for noses so I'm well up for it.


These two images sum up the car Jess took us in pretty well.

We get there and I'm suprised to see that the museum is in a little forest, very secluded stuff! Pay £2.70, waltz upstairs and have a poke about.
We then found maybe the place was TOO secluded beacause.. no one else was walking about. I got into this because it meant I could pretty much run about swinging my arms and even touching pieces of art if I'd wanted to. But I didn't. But seriously! Not even any guards! I know!

Example of Polish Art
Border Crossing showcases the work of young Polish artists from Bielsko-Biala and Cieszyn in south-west Poland. The exhibition explores the theme of crossing borders presented through a rich range of different media including painting, photography and sculpture.

So, the accompanying exhibit to the chapman one was a collection of works by various Polish artists. There was a broad range of work from splattery simple illustration to experimental photography from Karolina Tyrna with her brussel sprout headed people. These pieces were paticularly imposing and had a strong presence in the room, ominous even, due to I feel their solid thudding composition and the lack of human empathy from the headless subjects. Brr... Spooky.
Apart from that, Polish people make art just like the rest of us and I was eager to revisit the Chapmans so I toddled off to the next room.

and AGAIN! NO ONE! :D!!!!

A series of prints created by the original and controversial young British Artists Jake and Dinos Chapman.

The majority of the images on show are based loosely on join-the-dots drawings from children's picture books which were copied through photo-etching onto copper plates. These have triggered surrealistc interventions, improvised monstrous creatures, fantastic landscapes and macabre incidents, deviating wildly from the prescribed dot-to-dot formation. The works are rich in art - historical references, from medieval images of hell and damnation to Picasso, Surrealism and Abstract Expressionism and offer a brilliant introduction to the imaginations of two of Britain's most inventive and subversive artists.


Although I've seen them all before, I love these horrible little drawings because they have a deep level of detail to them without somehow going over the top.

Inspired, me and Jess felt compelled to make contributions to the exhibit using the provided colouring in pictures and pencils. I drew a one eyed meat rocket ;). Literally, its a rocket with an eye made of meat, and nothing else..
We then took pictures of us holding our drawings next to the exhibit work cause we didn't have anything to stick them up with :( thus my plans of gallery art graffiti were dashed.


Then I had a mess about on some old WW2 guns! Ho HO! Very fun!

Buddda budda budad budda buda budada budaa budaaa ubddaa! and my arse.

Then I had some coffee and the table was wobbly in the cafe. All in all, nice!

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