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William ShawFRAGMENTS OF SPEECH OVEHEARD AT THE FRIEZE ART FAIROver five days, at London’s Frieze Art Fair, artists Jake and Dinos Chapman offered to paint portraits of anyone who would pay £4,500 plus vat. From 11th to 15th October 2006, dealers, buyers and the curious public craned their head round the small doors of their enclosure to watch the two brothers at work gallerist Jay Joplin’s White Cube space at the International Art Fair to watch the event. Man from the BBC: “This is, a, ah, different thing for you.” Jake Chapman: “Not really.” [pause] ..."Jake and Dinos Chapman? Which one is which?"... Man from the BBC: “How long have you been interested in portraiture?”Jake Chapman: “Since about ten o’clock this morning.” [pause] Man from the BBC: “What made you want to do it?” Jake Champan: “Jay did. He kidnapped our children.” -o0o- Sitter 1 : “Oh well. It doesn’t look like me. But it’s quite nice.” Sitter 1’s friend: “The eyes are quite good.” Sitter 1: “But where did the ears come from though?” -o0o- Interviewer: “This isn’t so much about the portraits, but about you being here with the subjects…” Jake Chapman: “Well... it would be very difficult to do portraits without us being here…” -o0o- Bystander 1: “You see? You get your portrait from the Chapman Brothers, and afterwards you get into the Tate Liverpool…[Pause] The trouble is I’m not sure I want to get into the Tate Liverpool…” -o0o-  Sitter 2 [nervously jovial]: “I don’t think sitting for Rembrant would have been like this, do you?”Dinos Chapman [flatly]: “No.” -o0o- Tracey Emin, after kissing Jake on the cheek, takes off her coat: “The breasts are coming out.” -o0o- Sitter 3 [unable to see what Dinos is painting]: “I want to look like Hugh Grant.” Dinos Chapman: “Well… if I painted Hugh Grant he would look like this.” -o0o- Kate Moss: “Can you do me?”Dinos Chapman: “You’ll have to come back…" Kate Moss: "When?" Dinos Chapman: "We’re busy, you know… And you’ll have to sit still.” -o0o- Sitters 4 [a rich American who has just been depicted with his wife, sitter 5, as a bloody head on a stick]: “I love it. We have so many serious ones of us at home.” Sitter 5: “This is fun. I wouldn’t want it if it wasn’t fun.” Sitter 4: “And I don’t have any without my glasses on.” -o0o- Interviewer: “You don’t really foreground yourselves in your art usually…” Jake Chapman: “No.” Interviewer: “But in this you are… You’re very much part of this performance.” Jake Chapman: “But not in any particularly glamorous way. You know… we’re idiots.” Interviewer: “Idiots?” Jake Chapman: “Yes. There’s something idiotic about our project.” Sitter 6: [Laughs nervously] Jake Chapman: “Yes. But if it’s good it’s because it’s audacious… [sighs] I don’t even know what that word means.” Interviewer: “I’ve been watching people when they see the finished portrait for the first time. They tend to stand up and say, ‘Oh, that’s brilliant.’ And then walk away with this uncertain look on their faces.” Sitter 6: “Do they?” Jake Chapman: “Yeah yeah. There have been a few nip and tucks that don’t work out too well in oil paint.” -o0o- Bystander 2: “I didn’t know they could paint. I thought they just made shit.” -o0o- Dinos Chapman [as Jake removes his trousers to replace them with his overalls after arriving at the stall on the third day of the exhibition]: “Don’t look. Artist willy.”-o0o- Radio interviewer: “Some of your portraits aren’t very flattering.”Dinos Chapman: “They’re all flattering. It’s very flattering to have your portrait painted by great artists, wouldn’t you say, Jake?” Jake: [says nothing] Radio interviewer: “What styles do you paint in?” Dinos Chapman: “All styles… except good.” -o0o- Bystander 3: “This is such rubbish.” -o0o- Jake Chapman: “Some of these people are pig ugly.” -o0o- Interviewer: “There was a beautiful woman here on the first day. You painted her as a skull with worms coming out of the eyeballs and a swastika on her forehead…” Jake: “I’d had a conversation with her about burkas the night before and she took the Jack Straw position. So I said she was a Nazi. I thought she deserved a swastika on her forehead.” -o0o- Bystander 4: “Who are they? I don’t know them.” Bystander 5: “Jake and Dinos Chapman.” Bystander 4: [Pause] “Which one is which?” -o0o- Interviewer: “Are you gently nibbling the hand that feeds you?” Dinos Chapman: “We’re up to the elbows I think.” -o0o- At the end of the five days, Jake and Dinos Chapman had completed 125 portraits. Their provisional title for the event was Painting For Fun And Profit. The 125 portraits will be displayed at the Tate Liverpool in 2007. One of mine. There is all this material left over from writing features that never gets used. This is like using the leftovers from the Sunday roast. The photo is by art blogger Paolo Murphy, one of those people who craned their heads around the booth doorway. 4:17 PM - 14/12/2006 - post comment
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