Category Archives: Jake and Dinos Chapman

SANDWICH
A series of discursive pamphlets

First published in 2001, this experimental series pursued a design-led conjunction of art and theory. Contributors included philosophers, artists, and artist-writers, and sought to operate at the constantly shifting point between the two poles of popular ‘take-up’, and academic reflection.

Where academic writing may put a break on art and its concepts, in the popular realm the same ideas can circulate quite freely. If anything they are thereby accelerated, propelling thought at greater velocity. To provide a new, faster, and looser form of print communication Sandwich showcased commissioned writing and art from contemporary theorists and practitioners that were conceptual and reflective but could be accessed in a popular format, following the pamphlet/chapbook tradition.

As such it was hoped it may push, from both ends, a redirection of what writing about art and aesthetics might be. To this end, Sandwich attempted to harness the effective power of the popular through both content and form.

Each issue consisted of 1xA2 sheet, folding down to A6, with 2x cover boards affixed to the top and bottom of the folded sheet.
-A2 Sheet front: x2 commissioned texts plus 1x commissioned artwork, the latter ‘sandwiched’ between the former.
-A2 Sheet reverse: full size poster, commissioned image/text project

•  Issue 0 (Pilot issue), Autumn 2001: Mystic Materialism for Bored Aesthetes
Text a: The Song of The Norias Alphonso Lingis; Text b: Year Zero Jake Chapman
Artists project: Ovals Simon Bill; broadsheet poster/text: Bauhaus Yoga Paulina Olowska
Font: Univers; colour: PAN 032C (red)

•  Issue 1, Autumn 2004: The Science of the Becoming of Matter
Text a: The Language of Insects Nigel Cooke; Text b: Abstract Sex, an extract Luciana Parisi
Artists project: Fungi Kingdom Emanations Alison Gill; broadsheet poster/text: Compliance Aya Ben Ron
Font: Optima; colour: PAN 301C (blue)

Mainly for economic reasons only two issues of Sandwich were generated, but as an effect of the distribution/circulation of those issues I was approached in 2011 by the artist Brian Chalkley to produce another issue as the accompanying publication for his exhibition at the Horst Schuler Galerie, in Dusseldorf, Germany. I used this as an opportunity to test the formal flexibility and durable potential of the format.

•  Issue 2, Autumn 2011: Brian Chalkley: Career Girls
Artists project: Career Girls Brian Chalkley; broadsheet poster/text: Career Girls Brian Chalkley
Font: Melior; colour: C0/M55/Y100/K0 (orange)

Technical information
Published in editions of 1000 copies, by SecMoCo, London, UK; edited by Simon Josebury (issues 0 & 1), Simon Josebury, Jake Chapman and Suhail Malik (issue 1); texts and images: various contributors; size: as above; stock: 90/400gsm Chromolux, shrink wrapped; printed by Furnival Press, London (issue 0), Aldgate Press, London (issue 1), Calverts, London (issue 2).
[NB: the 2x separate cover boards, for front and back, used for issue 0 was changed to 1x cover incorporating front and back, with a spine, for issue 1]

The first issue was included in the book NoBrief: Graphic Designer’s Personal Projects (RotoVison, 2002). Selected and edited by John O’Reilly, his commentary within provides a more than decent account of the form and content:‘This art pamphlet opens up to a full poster. On one side there is an image of a work by Paulina Olowska called ‘Bauhaus Yoga’, with an essay by her in the bottom-left-hand corner, which is the back of the pamphlet.The cardboard cover is in the top-right-hand corner, hence the title ‘Sandwich’. The other side contains, among other items, an essay called ‘Meatphysics’ by artist Jake Chapman.This is the first issue of Sandwich and is as much an object in itself as a forum for artists and writers. Designer Simon Josebury’s work for London’s Cabinet gallery has meant that this pamphlet has a unique perspective that is both highly intellectual and raw’.

Testing
Sandwich existed as a journal but also as a pamphlet/broadsheet/poster, a formally delimited space, but one with infinite potential, where text and image could combine to generate new meanings.

UNHOLY LIBEL
Jake & Dinos Chapman

For their first major U.S. exhibition (‘Six Feet Under’ Gagosian Gallery, New York, USA, September 13-October 11, 1997) Jake and Dinos Chapman asked SecMoCo to design the accompanying publication. More than a catalogue, it was seen as a stand alone edition developing the themes and concerns of the work, as such the design took a blasphemous turn, adopting the form of the helpful reading material you could once find in the drawer of any hotel room bedside cabinet.

First published by Gagosian Gallery, US, 1997; edited, and with a text by Jake and Dinos Chapman; 215x164mm; 152pp; thread sewn; 48 color illustrations; gilt edges; brown faux-leather covers in plastic jacket, gold embossing. Print: Jim Pennington for Lithosphere, London

Context from Amazon:
Best Sellers Rank: #4,107,057 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
By Antonio A. Urdiales on December 30, 2005
‘Once again Jake and Dinos Chapman take us on a trip through the absurd. This book has a very thin narrative running through it. If you’re looking for fiction by two of the most vile of Britain’s artworld, you’ve come to the wrong place, LEAVE NOW!

The books is a series of vingettes detailing gruesome monstrosities in the style of J.G. Ballard. I’m sure there was a plot in there somewhere, but the chapters were so short (think two to three a page) and fragmented that I lost it. Mostly it just read like details from an apocalyptic surgical guide. Which isn’t for everybody. But if you enjoy exploding brains and monstrous genitalia, LA TEE DA! The written word was fun if not tiring. But the real beauty of the book is in the plates of the boys sculptures. The sculptural work of the Chapman brothers is grotesque divinity, detailing mutated children from a land in which all normal notions of beauty have been subverted. And the colored plates dispersed throughout the writings were excellent examples of their sculptural works and just truly a joy to look at. The book is also gilt edged with a beautifully embossed cover, it’s also a very tiny book which makes one desire to carry it around as a horrifying talisman of the new age. This book is a VERY rare artbook as well, created by the Gagosian Gallery in New York. An edition of this book costs about $100 to thousands for signed copies. I would highly recommend picking up an edition up if you’re a collector of YBA artworks or the Chapman brothers, I wouldn’t doubt that the price will skyrocket in coming years.’

http://www.amazon.com/Unholy-Libel-Six-Feet-Under/dp/1880154145