Tag Archives: London

Laughing at Tate Britain

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I visited Tate Britain last weekend. The current LS Lowry exhibition is sublime. Go and see it! There’s really not much that I could post on Talking Beautiful Stuff about this artist or his work that has not already been said. Leaving the exhibition exhilarated, I thought I would take a look at what else this sober and venerable British institution had to offer.

I walked into a tastefully but dramatically lit room that, at first glance, might house a Musée Barbier-Mueller exibition. People wandered around between the thirty-four “primitive” masks, carvings and icons. I couldn’t work out why these other visitors were laughing. There was something else going on here; something that made me take a second and then a third look at these objects.

Chapman 1

The Chapman Family Collection by Jake and Dinos Chapman, 2002, Photo: © Tate, London 2013

A press release accompanying the first exhibition of The Chapman Family Collection in 2002 at London’s White Cube gallery stated it was “an extraordinary collection of rare ethnographic and reliquary fetish objects from the former colonial regions of Camgib, Seirf and Ekoc, which the artists Jake and Dinos Chapman’s family had amassed over seventy years.” In fact, the collection is one work. Just reverse the names of the three tribes, read on and you’ll understand why people were laughing.

Chapman 2

Detail from: The Chapman Family Collection by Jake and Dinos Chapman, 2002. Photo thanks to Tate Britain. Note the yellow “M”!

Chapman 3

Detail from: The Chapman Family Collection by Jake and Dinos Chapman, 2002. Photo thanks to Tate Britain. Recognise the face?

Chapman 4

Detail from: The Chapman Family Collection by Jake and Dinos Chapman, 2002. Photo thanks to Tate Britain. Well… just to make it obvious!

Chapman 5

Detail from: The Chapman Family Collection by Jake and Dinos Chapman, 2002. Photo thanks to Tate Britain. This one really made me laugh!

Chapman 6

Detail from: The Chapman Family Collection by Jake and Dinos Chapman, 2002. Photo thanks to Tate Britain. This is my favourite!

The Chapman Brothers have been working together since 1991. They are no strangers to controversy. Their subjects have included Naziism and war-time atrocities. I cannot judge whether, by delicious mischief, the Chapman Family Collection succeeds or not in making a coherent statement about the interface of, on one hand, how primitive “art” is displayed and valued; and, on the other hand, modernism, and commercialism. However, this work caused me to laugh and what’s more laugh at Tate Britain. Chapman Brothers – Bravo! Tate Britain – Bravo!

The Kindertransport statue, Liverpool Street Station, London

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I arrive at Liverpool Street Station in London amid determined commuters and disorientated tourists. Something catches my eye as I head up the stairs past McDonald’s. I find myself in front of a modern statue in bright bronze of a collection of five children. They are standing still and looking around. They don’t seem lost. Their features remind me of Jewish friends I have worked with.

Kindertransport 1

This is about the Kindertransport. In 1938 and 1939, ten thousand unaccompanied Jewish children were transported to Britain to escape persecution in their hometowns in Germany and Austria. These children arrived at Liverpool Street station to be taken in by British families and foster homes. Only a few were reunited with their families after World War II.

Kindertransport 2

This 2006 commemorative statue is the work of Frank Meisler and Arie Oviada. It is beautiful, precise and poignant. The children are poised and proud. Their heads are held high. They are determined. They are looking to the future. They do not carry themselves as victims. Their faces radiate hope. A greater innocence is underscored by the youngest girl clutching a teddy bear. The young boy maybe brings musical talent with him; he has a violin case by his side. The tallest girl’s pubescence has been captured to perfection.

Kindertransport 3

However, each child has a tag with a number. Behind the group is a short section of railway line. Both tags and rails serve as disconcerting reminders of what might have been had they not been brought to Britain. Numbers might have been tattooed on their arms and railways might have brought them to Auschwitz or Belsen rather than to Liverpool Street.

Talking Beautiful Stuff is about the narrative behind any output of the human impulse to create; this beautiful stuff has narrative by the ton. Once again, I am struck by how really, really ugly stuff can be the source of inspiration for really, really beautiful stuff.

And if this was not testament enough to the human folly and cruelty of the 20th century, twenty metres away is the marbled roll of honour with the names of 900 (yes, 900!) employees of the Great Eastern Railway who lost their lives in the Great War of 1914 to 1918. I realise that, had they survived, they might have witnessed the Kindertransport. I feel tears in my eyes and head for the bustling sanctuary of the London Underground.

The Kindertransport commemorative statue was sponsored by the Association of Jewish Refugees and the Central British Fund for World Jewish Relief.