The End of Fun

Introduced with an exclusive essay by Will Self placing the eponymous sculpture The End of Fun in both the context of the Chapman's oeuvre and historical interpretations of Hell, this book is a detailed examination of the work. Completed in 2012, it is the latest incarnation of the brothers' famous Hell (1999), which was consumed in the MOMART fire of 2004. Following on in both layout and format from the book Fucking Hell (2008), The End of Fun consists of close-up photographs detailing the atrocities committed by the subjects of the work: thousands of miniature Nazis and skeletons, who seem to be engaged in an eternal battle across nine separate vitrines, arranged in the shape of a reverse swastika. Each dreadful scene is played out against a series of equally apocalyptic backdrops: a derelict factory; a concentration camp; a shattered church; an erupting volcano. Dark humour permeates: in one vitrine a still-smiling Ronald McDonald is being crucified; in another a dreadlocked Stephen Hawking grows marijuana; in yet another, seven separate Adolf Hitlers make distinctly 'degenerate' paintings of a nude, oblivious to the carnage raging around them.