If Hitler Had Been a Hippy How Happy Would We Be @ White Cube Mason's Yard, St James's

Jun 25 2008 Christian Mclaughlin, Hounslow Chronicle

To have a sense of humour when two years of your hard work burns to the ground is impressive.

Yet to turn around after it's gone and vow to come back with a bigger and better version is admirable.

The piece in question is Jake and Dinos Chapman's Hell, which was destroyed, along with countless prized pieces of contemporary art, in the Momart storage warehouse fire of 2004.

Upon hearing the news, Dinos reportedly said: "If the insurers decide the fire is an act of God it's going to be quite funny - that God destroyed Hell.

"In fact, if that happens, I will start going to church."

Typical of a duo that has found fame in the art world through provocation, as well as the support of collector Charles Saatchi, since the early 1990s. Mutilated mannequins with genitalia growing out of their heads; original prints of Goya defaced - the artists appear to be hell-bent on disturbing their viewers.

Sadly, I never had the chance to see the original version of Hell, but their follow-up, F****** Hell, was worth the wait.

Housed in the underbelly of White Cube Mason's Yard, the west London branch of Jay Joplin's Hoxton Square institution, the nine, head-high, glass-fibre cases are a breathtaking sight. Arranged in the shape of a swastika - the exhibition entitled If Hitler Had Been a Hippy How Happy Would We Be - each case present a mixture of horror and absurdity that is hard to digest.

Part of you wants to dismiss the scenes as simple tomfoolery. Assembled entirely with toys, the thousands of little figurines could rouse contempt.

Scenes of graphic violence dotted with tiny plastic teddy bears, rubber ducks or snowmen, encourage you to treat the work as a gaffe of some sort.

On the other hand, however, especially when you lower your vision to the eye-level of the gruesome depictions, it is practically impossible not to be drawn in by the brilliance of their craftsmanship.

Amid the bloodbath, you start to think of the teddy bear as a sign of lost innocence.

You imagine the reality of warfare, and the disturbing connection that its perpetrators would have once been youngsters with toys.

Scanning, you see a figurine of Hitler, facing out over a valley of cadavers while painting a child-like house with blue sky and smoking chimney. Ludicrous? Not necessarily. Walk to the following room of the exhibition and you see the 13, equally serene, original Hitler watercolours the Chapmans have assembled and touched up.

Upstairs in the gallery is another opportunity to laugh, or possibly cry, in the One Day You Will No Longer Be Loved series. Thankfully not masterpieces like the Goyas, the Chapman brothers have once again disfigured once-treasured images, this time a range of dusty, old and damaged Victorian family portraits.

Grotesque re-touchings vividly show the passing of time. It's almost as if the sitters - a presumably vain and pompous exercise in the eyes of the artists - have been dragged out of their graves and repainted accordingly.

Some faces sag, others bleed, and one even has the skin of a monkey stapled to its skull. It's hardly offensive - once dead and buried, the portraits have been given a much more interesting lease of life. But just in case God thinks otherwise, it would be wise to see the Chapman brothers' return to the underworld while you can.

Jake and Dinos Chapman's If Hitler Had Been a Hippy How Happy Would We Be can be seen at White Cube Mason's Yard, 24-25 Mason's Yard, St James's, until July 12. Free. Tues-Sat, 10am-6pm. Call 020 7930 5373. See www.whitecube.com