Thread by @SomeBitchIIKnow

The luxury brand @LouisVuitton collaborated with two artists who, by their own words, "appeal to perverts, pedophiles, and sick pathological bastards."

A Thread by L 🪡🧵

Amid the Balenciaga scandal, names of an artistic duo popped up that caught my eye in a thread by a Twitter user "curioslight"—a user who has since disappeared.

The thread discussed Lotta Volkova, a Balenciaga stylist.

The thread is archived here: archive.ph/20221128071440…

In a subsequent thread, Curioslight highlighted the duo Jake and Dinos Chapman, whose art was sold at Christie's for significant amounts of money.

Thread Archive: web.archive.org/web/2022113010…

The argument can be made that the man who owns a massive holding company is not directly responsible for one of his properties and the things they sell there. To be sure, Ryan Smith over at Newsweek jumped on it immediately.

archive.ph/20221130221224…

Ryan's arguments largely involved copy and pasting comments from Reddit and calling it an article.

But the fact remains, Jake and Dinos Chapman are currently exhibited in many world-famous art museums, their disturbing art is being sold for large amounts at Christie's and they collaborated with both Louis Vuitton and Supreme recently. So let's get into it.

Jake and Dinos were first exhibited in 1991 and 1992, with this mural titled, “We are Artists.” It is a mud wall painting featuring a manifesto of sorts. It begins: “We are sore-eyed scopophiliac oxymorons.”

Merriam-Webster defines scopophilia as, “a desire to look at sexually stimulating scenes especially as a substitute for actual sexual participation.”

archive.ph/pp3EQ

By the mid 1990’s, Jake and Dinos Chapman established themselves as “bad boys” of the London art scene, as described by many in numerous newspaper articles about them.

CLIPPED FROM
Evening Standard
London, Greater London, England
22 Aug 1997
newspapers.com/clip/114012793…

In 1994, Jake and Dinos Chapman produced their first art featuring child mannequins with genitalia for noses and anuses for mouths. This one is titled "Fuck Face."

web.archive.org/web/2018080819…

Fuck Face sold at Christie's in 2010 for a whopping £115,250.

archive.ph/20221128163111…

Plenty of other items have sold at Christie's for extremely large sums of money.

christies.com/search?entry=j…

Another work, a drawing, that year titled "Sad Presentiments of Things to Come."

web.archive.org/web/2022062818…

There are too many to continue listing here, but as significant portion of Jake and Dino Chapman's art involves children, both in drawings and in sculpture, covered in genitalia, sometimes fused together, & every last bit of it is gross.

That's the point.
jakeanddinoschapman.com/everything/wor…

The argument behind transgressive art is that it seeks the exact reaction I'm giving it right now: disgust, rage, and all sorts of other emotions.

An article from 1996 offers more insight.
newspapers.com/clip/114013031…

"Jake and Dinos Chapman specialise in the Art of the Repellent."

"Yet Sylvester Stallone loves them. Charles Saatchi and galleries worldwide are rushing to snap up as much of their œuvre as they can."

More:

But according to Jake Chapman it's a privilege to be outraged, and a "pleasure." It's because you're "allowing" yourself to feel moral outrage.

And finally: "We appeal to perverts, pedophiles, and sick pathological bastards who are essentially all conservative and bourgeois," boasts Jake.

Another article from The Observer - 24 Sep 1995
newspapers.com/clip/114012119…

Presented without comment.

When asked if their work exploits children.

In which they claim they are the first to take pleasure in their work involving child abuse.

Again, reference one of the first parts of this thread in which they describe themselves as scopophiliac oxymorons. Meaning they take sexual pleasure from viewing such scenes.

In which the brothers Chapman claim that children being sexualized by adults is disturbing to children. "No, it's probably not - these models of sexuality seek to protect, but they also repress."

One might argue the collaborations with Louis Vuitton and Supreme happened two decades later, so it can be excused. However, right before the LV collaboration Jake and Dinos produced another child mannequin. And during, their collaboration with Supreme involved many more.

TBC...

Starting some time in 2013, Jake and Dinos starting collaborating with @LouisVuitton, many times between then and up until 2017ish.

https://twitter.com/JakeandDinos/status/383226232206553088

Archive:

https://archive.ph/20221204065807/https://twitter.com/JakeandDinos/status/383226232206553088

In September 2013, @BritishGQ reported that Jake and Dinos collaborated with @LouisVuitton to design a teddy bear.

https://archive.ph/20221204074344/https://twitter.com/BritishGQ/status/378169182077980672

And @Independent reported that the Chapmans were collaborating with Kim Jones to design luggage.

If you can look closely, you can see in the top picture on the right side they are sitting next to a mannequin with a large penis. Completely uncensored.

archive.ph/7pL2b

In 2012, the year before the first collaboration, Jake and Dinos produced another work titled "Yin and Yang" for charity. Mannequins of children with genitalia for facial features holding AK-47s.

archive.ph/6hjBw

This was also the year that Dinos Chapman created a personal Twitter account. His first tweet?

archive.ph/6hjBw

So right after that began the Jake and Dinos/Louis Vuitton collaborations. When the mannequins that by their own admission appeal to perverts and pedophiles that they create for their own sexual pleasure are being produced and still shared.

From @dazedbeauty Jan 18, 2013:

"Major Jake and Dinos @LouisVuitton_UK collaboration!"

archive.ph/NODt4
archive.ph/krRTV
archive.ph/RnPn8

From @koraycaner Aug 13, 2013:

https://archive.ph/20221203233518/https://twitter.com/koraycaner/status/367310428260405248

In September 2013, Jake and Dinos curated shelves for @LouisVuitton's Bond Street store.

https://archive.ph/20221204065807/https://twitter.com/JakeandDinos/status/383226232206553088

September 2016: Sadistic safari for Louis Vuitton.
archive.ph/Rg63B

"There's a sinister side to high fashion, perhaps you should consider watching @LouisVuitton's #lvmenss17 show.."

archive.ph/iojlD

"Accessories from the @LouisVuitton x Jake & Dinos SS17 collaboration, photographed by Artistic Director Kim Jones. ow.ly/kyTQ307heSn"

In December 2016, @hero_magazine wrote a story about their @LouisVuitton collaboration: "a sinister safari."
archive.ph/Mmw4u

Covered in a story by the @latimes.

archive.ph/yNVVt

And in 2017, Jake and Dinos and @LouisVuitton opened up a pop-up shop in NYC, covered in @GQMagazine.

archive.ph/uIeJ8

So did @LouisVuitton and artistic director Kim Jones know of Jake and Dinos Chapman's many art installations involving children with genitalia for facial features that Jake and Dinos created to appeal to pedophiles that they admittedly derive sexual pleasure from?

Well. You would certainly think so. Because in that exact same timeframe, Jake and Dinos and @Supreme_NYC collaborated to make limited edition skateboards, several years in a row.

Featuring their child mannequin series.

TBC

archive.ph/eiCai

Starting in 2012, a year before Jake and Dinos Chapman began working with @LouisVuitton, they began a collaboration with @Supreme_NYC that also spanned the next several years.

archive.ph/GqHZV

I scraped all mentions on Twitter from the @JakeandDinos official Twitter account and between 2012 and 2020 they advertise the collaboration several times, almost every single year.

An example:

More archives:
"Siamese Cunt x Supreme Skateboard Deck"
archive.ph/vYkpT
"This limited edition, signed, Fuckface x Supreme skateboard deck can be yours for £150"
archive.ph/g4lbP

"Our range of skateboard decks were produced in collaboration with @SupremeNyc"
archive.ph/rNGm7

There are plenty of others, and you can view them yourself by following this targeted search link: twitter.com/search?q=supre…

And view the tags for collaborations with @LouisVuitton occurring during the same period.

twitter.com/search?q=louis…

So again, the question stands:

Where does @LouisVuitton stand? Why choose Jake and Dinos Chapman to collaborate with, hinting at their other work, knowing the kinds of artists they are?

Similarly, why did @Supreme_NYC collaborate w/ them to make skateboards w/ those images?

Time will tell.

Talk soon,

L

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