0:00:02 > 0:00:05This programme contains some scenes which some viewers may find upsetting
0:00:05 > 0:00:06My name is Jake Chapman.
0:00:06 > 0:00:09For more than 20 years, me and my brother Dinos have been making art
0:00:09 > 0:00:13related to the work of an artist that died nearly two centuries ago.
0:00:15 > 0:00:18That artist is the Spaniard, Francisco Goya, and he produced
0:00:18 > 0:00:22some of the most powerful and disturbing images of his time.
0:00:23 > 0:00:27But we haven't been conventionally inspired by Goya's work.
0:00:27 > 0:00:31Instead, we've drawn on, rectified and remade it.
0:00:31 > 0:00:33We've inhabited and invaded it.
0:00:33 > 0:00:36And if you count up all the works we've produced,
0:00:36 > 0:00:39including individual etchings, editions, sculptures and models,
0:00:39 > 0:00:42we've amassed over 1,000 artworks related to Goya,
0:00:42 > 0:00:46almost all of them based upon his set of etchings, The Disasters Of War.
0:00:50 > 0:00:52And we're not done with him yet.
0:00:52 > 0:00:54Which of you hasn't been painted?
0:00:54 > 0:00:58Because we're close to finishing another Goya-related artwork.
0:01:00 > 0:01:02We've picked on Goya for a reason.
0:01:02 > 0:01:06He is regarded as the first major artist of the modern era
0:01:06 > 0:01:08and his depictions of man's inhumanity to man
0:01:08 > 0:01:12are seen as an explicit protest against violence.
0:01:14 > 0:01:17But in this film, I'm going to explain why I think
0:01:17 > 0:01:20such an orderly interpretation of Goya's work is a mistake.
0:01:21 > 0:01:23I'm going to travel to Spain
0:01:23 > 0:01:27to see Goya's masterpieces in the Prado for the very first time
0:01:27 > 0:01:29and visit his hometown, Zaragoza,
0:01:29 > 0:01:33and the places that may have prompted The Disasters Of War.
0:01:33 > 0:01:35Let's see if we can cross without getting killed.
0:01:38 > 0:01:40But I'm not interested in Goya's personality,
0:01:40 > 0:01:42nor unpicking his idiosyncratic motives.
0:01:44 > 0:01:48What I want to do is explore the work's actual effect,
0:01:48 > 0:01:50to examine its sinister underbelly,
0:01:50 > 0:01:54to show that it is far more radical than conventional history allows
0:01:54 > 0:01:57and that rather than illuminating the recesses of the human soul,
0:01:57 > 0:02:01Goya propels us into an irredeemable gloom.
0:02:21 > 0:02:24200 years ago, over a period of six years,
0:02:24 > 0:02:27Francisco Goya etched 83 images onto copper plates.
0:02:29 > 0:02:33Each shows a scene from the brutal war waged against the French forces
0:02:33 > 0:02:37that had occupied Spain since 1807.
0:02:38 > 0:02:41Nothing quite like it had appeared before.
0:02:44 > 0:02:47Goya would never see his engravings committed to paper,
0:02:47 > 0:02:50due to the politically sensitive content.
0:02:50 > 0:02:54It was only 35 years after his death that the first sets were printed.
0:02:56 > 0:02:57Goya gave them the title
0:02:57 > 0:03:03Fatal Consequences Of Spain's Bloody War With Bonaparte And Other Emphatic Caprices.
0:03:03 > 0:03:05But we know them as The Disasters Of War.
0:03:10 > 0:03:13A dominant or conventional reading of the work would say that
0:03:13 > 0:03:20the work is the trace element of Goya's experience of seeing violence
0:03:20 > 0:03:21and that what the viewer does is
0:03:21 > 0:03:26they recognise the truth of that in the work and they respond to it.
0:03:28 > 0:03:31The Disasters Of War are often regarded as a warning against
0:03:31 > 0:03:36violence, as documentary evidence of mankind's capacity for inhumanity.
0:03:37 > 0:03:40But I've always found this explanation misleading.
0:03:40 > 0:03:42I'm more interested in what is excluded
0:03:42 > 0:03:45by this positive interpretation, which is why Goya's work
0:03:45 > 0:03:48has been a starting point for so much of our art.
0:03:55 > 0:03:59This is our working copy of The Disasters Of War.
0:03:59 > 0:04:03It's just a very kind of cheap, off-the-shelf, cheap print.
0:04:06 > 0:04:10What's interesting is, the drawings are underscored by things
0:04:10 > 0:04:14which describe, give them a moral elevation.
0:04:16 > 0:04:19This is probably the most iconic,
0:04:19 > 0:04:21which is Great Deeds Against The Dead.
0:04:21 > 0:04:23In terms of how you read the drawing,
0:04:23 > 0:04:28as an index of an objection to violence on the part of the artist,
0:04:28 > 0:04:32the degree to which the artist is obliged to draw something
0:04:32 > 0:04:35which allows us to have a kind of model reaction
0:04:35 > 0:04:40is in itself in excess of the message which it is supposed to deliver.
0:04:40 > 0:04:43That there is something inherently paradoxical about making
0:04:43 > 0:04:47a work of art which tells us that violence is bad
0:04:47 > 0:04:52and simultaneously shows us that violence drawn like this
0:04:52 > 0:04:54is attractive, has some intensive meaning for us,
0:04:54 > 0:04:56and that intensive meaning,
0:04:56 > 0:05:00I guess I'm interested in where that intensive meaning exists.
0:05:14 > 0:05:16We are at the Tate Gallery storage
0:05:16 > 0:05:20and we are going to look at Disasters Of War
0:05:20 > 0:05:26which is our first rendition of small-scale toy sculptures
0:05:26 > 0:05:28which was produced, I think...
0:05:30 > 0:05:34I haven't seen it for ten years, I can't remember when we made it,
0:05:34 > 0:05:38but I know I haven't seen it for ten years, so we'll go from there.
0:05:40 > 0:05:41I'm really excited to see it.
0:05:50 > 0:05:52Hi.
0:05:55 > 0:05:56Oh, wow.
0:06:04 > 0:06:05God.
0:06:14 > 0:06:17It's like, um, Goya crazy golf.
0:06:20 > 0:06:24It's so weird. It's really strange seeing this.
0:06:27 > 0:06:33This was made in my flat in Pepys Road, New Cross,
0:06:33 > 0:06:34before we even had a studio.
0:06:37 > 0:06:39It's amazing.
0:06:39 > 0:06:45It's simultaneously alien but painfully familiar.
0:06:46 > 0:06:50I can really remember making it.
0:06:50 > 0:06:54But...just the overall aesthetic is very crude.
0:06:58 > 0:07:02This was our first artwork based on Goya.
0:07:02 > 0:07:05We painstakingly copied each scene from The Disasters Of War.
0:07:07 > 0:07:10By reducing their scale to the domain of toys,
0:07:10 > 0:07:13we wanted to deny death its true magnitude,
0:07:13 > 0:07:17to call into question the obvious moral certainty of these images.
0:07:20 > 0:07:22In the years after we made this work,
0:07:22 > 0:07:25we returned again and again to Goya's images.
0:07:34 > 0:07:37But now I've decided to come to Spain to see Goya's work in person.
0:07:42 > 0:07:44We are at the Prado, in Madrid.
0:07:44 > 0:07:48This is the first time I've ever been here,
0:07:48 > 0:07:52so to see Goya's paintings, it's very exciting for me,
0:07:52 > 0:07:54to see them for the first time.
0:07:56 > 0:07:58Face to face.
0:08:10 > 0:08:14You know, it's pretty glib, but the person in profile looks like
0:08:14 > 0:08:18the kind of person who would blink in a family photographic portrait.
0:08:20 > 0:08:25It's quite strange. Why would you paint someone like that? Quite odd.
0:08:39 > 0:08:42The idea of two paintings with the same subject,
0:08:42 > 0:08:47one dressed and one nude, is already...
0:08:47 > 0:08:52seems to me significantly an audacious act,
0:08:52 > 0:08:57and one which begs questions of the idea of repetition
0:08:57 > 0:08:59and the idea of modernity.
0:08:59 > 0:09:03Also, given the fact that actually the power of these paintings
0:09:03 > 0:09:05is also something to do with the fact that
0:09:05 > 0:09:07the privileged gaze of the male spectator
0:09:07 > 0:09:12is somehow being reciprocated by the subject
0:09:12 > 0:09:15and, therefore, in some senses,
0:09:15 > 0:09:18the relations of power are being upended.
0:09:20 > 0:09:24The idea that Goya can be regarded as a modern artist is
0:09:24 > 0:09:29because the idea of the invention of an internal landscape,
0:09:29 > 0:09:33the idea of an investigation or examination of the psyche.
0:09:33 > 0:09:38And also, that in some ways, his investigation of this kind of content
0:09:38 > 0:09:42has an effect over the kind of tools or mechanisms for representation.
0:09:42 > 0:09:47The representational means themselves become simultaneous with the content.
0:09:47 > 0:09:51That is to say that they become psychologically active.
0:09:51 > 0:09:53Not only for the artist but for the viewer.
0:09:57 > 0:09:59We are going to enter the room, Black Paintings,
0:09:59 > 0:10:01The Second and Third of May,
0:10:01 > 0:10:04paintings which I've never seen before in the flesh.
0:10:08 > 0:10:10God.
0:10:12 > 0:10:14Jesus.
0:10:16 > 0:10:20What's interesting about seeing a painting in the flesh,
0:10:20 > 0:10:24after you're familiar with it in reproduction,
0:10:24 > 0:10:30is that it kind of decompresses from the flatness of the image.
0:10:32 > 0:10:36Goya's great masterpiece, The Third of May,
0:10:36 > 0:10:42shows the execution of Spanish partisans by French soldiers in 1808.
0:10:42 > 0:10:46These were the first days of a war that would leave Spain in ruins.
0:10:50 > 0:10:52This work is very particular
0:10:52 > 0:10:55in the manner in which it captures its political subject.
0:10:55 > 0:10:59It is considered one of the first great paintings of the modern era.
0:11:03 > 0:11:06You notice this kind of strange lamp in the middle,
0:11:06 > 0:11:09which is obviously the light source for the luminosity of these figures,
0:11:09 > 0:11:15but it's quite an interesting object to have in a painting.
0:11:15 > 0:11:19And also, you know, just the way in which some of these,
0:11:19 > 0:11:23obviously, the figures are anonymised by being painted from reverse.
0:11:23 > 0:11:26You know, again, you're getting these bits
0:11:26 > 0:11:29where the paint is almost thinning out to nothing.
0:11:29 > 0:11:35The blood...is almost reduced to simple strokes of the brush.
0:11:37 > 0:11:41Again, somehow it still maintains its ability to be blood-like,
0:11:41 > 0:11:44and yet at the same time, paint-like.
0:11:44 > 0:11:48Maybe what's happening here is this kind of precarious balance
0:11:48 > 0:11:51against which the content of the painting
0:11:51 > 0:11:54is beginning to emerge from the paint,
0:11:54 > 0:11:57almost by the willpower of the viewer,
0:11:57 > 0:12:02rather than just the viewer identifying its pictorial depth.
0:12:02 > 0:12:06But rather than it necessarily being the content of the work,
0:12:06 > 0:12:09it's also to do with how the viewer has to struggle
0:12:09 > 0:12:12in order to make these things conform to an image.
0:12:15 > 0:12:18If you look at the violence in the formal terms of the painting -
0:12:18 > 0:12:21the way in which the structure is falling apart,
0:12:21 > 0:12:24the way in which there are flat parts -
0:12:24 > 0:12:26there are ways in which the illusion is being kind of degraded
0:12:26 > 0:12:31or being destroyed or being completely disregarded,
0:12:31 > 0:12:34and that the formal and conventional ways in which we look at
0:12:34 > 0:12:37a painting is being completely broken up -
0:12:37 > 0:12:39that is an extremely violent act.
0:12:39 > 0:12:43They are more violent than just the simple sort of representational,
0:12:43 > 0:12:46pictorial offering of someone being shot or stabbed.
0:12:54 > 0:12:58These are Goya's Black Paintings. Notorious Black Paintings.
0:13:00 > 0:13:04These images were made by Goya in the last years of his life.
0:13:04 > 0:13:07It is widely assumed that through this period,
0:13:07 > 0:13:10Goya suffered from some form of mental illness.
0:13:10 > 0:13:13Art historians have speculated on the causes -
0:13:13 > 0:13:15his political and social alienation,
0:13:15 > 0:13:17the illness that rendered him deaf
0:13:17 > 0:13:21or the horrors that he witnessed during the war.
0:13:21 > 0:13:22But whatever the causes,
0:13:22 > 0:13:25it is these images that are used as evidence of his mental state.
0:13:26 > 0:13:28When you look at this painting,
0:13:28 > 0:13:32I think you could be forgiven for assuming
0:13:32 > 0:13:36that if these likenesses are anything realistic,
0:13:36 > 0:13:42then the subjects of these paintings look like mad people.
0:13:42 > 0:13:46They look like images of people who exist in asylums.
0:13:46 > 0:13:50If they are of mad people, you might make the mistake of thinking
0:13:50 > 0:13:52they've been painted by a mad person.
0:13:52 > 0:13:57I'm suggesting that it does not necessarily follow that the artist...
0:13:57 > 0:14:02that these things are mirrors of the psychological state of the artist.
0:14:02 > 0:14:05The problem, I suppose, that I'm having
0:14:05 > 0:14:08with assuming the confessional state of these works
0:14:08 > 0:14:12representing something pathological on the part of the artist,
0:14:12 > 0:14:15will somehow obscure the specificity of the paintings.
0:14:15 > 0:14:18But the paintings are good despite the artist.
0:14:18 > 0:14:21I'm suggesting that my interest in Goya
0:14:21 > 0:14:25is Goya the works of art and not Goya the person.
0:14:27 > 0:14:29For fear of making that mistake.
0:14:34 > 0:14:37This blurred line between art and biography is a potent presence
0:14:37 > 0:14:40in the way Goya's later work is understood,
0:14:40 > 0:14:44and it's true of The Disasters Of War as much as anything else.
0:14:49 > 0:14:53I've arrived in Zaragoza, which is Goya's home town, but I'm also here
0:14:53 > 0:14:57to visit some of the places depicted in The Disasters Of War.
0:15:03 > 0:15:07In the main cathedral square...
0:15:07 > 0:15:11I've spotted a sculpture of Goya,
0:15:11 > 0:15:13a statue of Goya, I should say.
0:15:19 > 0:15:23I wonder if that is supposed to be a suite of Disasters Of War.
0:15:26 > 0:15:28He's clutching his etchings.
0:15:28 > 0:15:32He's got a hard point scribe in his right hand,
0:15:32 > 0:15:34Disasters of War in his left hand.
0:15:37 > 0:15:41Zaragoza was the scene of some of the bloodiest fighting
0:15:41 > 0:15:43during the Napoleonic occupation of Spain.
0:15:43 > 0:15:49The city was completely destroyed and the population decimated.
0:15:49 > 0:15:51All that remains today of that conflict
0:15:51 > 0:15:53is a bullet-ridden city gate.
0:15:55 > 0:15:58But one of the popular heroes of the siege
0:15:58 > 0:16:01was a woman who came to be known as Agustina of Aragon
0:16:01 > 0:16:04and she is depicted by Goya in The Disasters Of War.
0:16:06 > 0:16:10'I'm meeting a local guide who is going to tell me more.'
0:16:10 > 0:16:12The monument is called
0:16:12 > 0:16:15the monument to the heroines of what we call the Independence War.
0:16:15 > 0:16:17- You call it the Peninsular War. - Right.
0:16:17 > 0:16:20- Heroines, the female form - very important.- Right, OK.
0:16:20 > 0:16:23Can you explain the symbolism of the monument?
0:16:23 > 0:16:26Right on top we've got Agustina de Aragon
0:16:26 > 0:16:28who is the heroine of the war.
0:16:28 > 0:16:30But she was only one amongst many.
0:16:30 > 0:16:34But maybe the episode which is represented here
0:16:34 > 0:16:35is the most famous one.
0:16:35 > 0:16:40One morning, the French had been bombing the city gates.
0:16:40 > 0:16:42All the men who were defending it
0:16:42 > 0:16:44were dying or dead, lying on the floor.
0:16:44 > 0:16:47The cannon was loaded, but there was nobody there to fire it.
0:16:47 > 0:16:51She saw the whole situation, so she herself took the burning light
0:16:51 > 0:16:55from the hands of the fallen soldier, lit the cannon, fired it.
0:16:55 > 0:16:58The French were frightened so they did not dare to attack
0:16:58 > 0:17:01and the defenders could assemble again.
0:17:01 > 0:17:04- How ferocious was the fighting? - It was terrible.
0:17:04 > 0:17:06Everywhere, the whole city.
0:17:06 > 0:17:12Because it was the civil population who were in front of the soldiers.
0:17:12 > 0:17:16You must imagine, this was a very, very strange thing.
0:17:16 > 0:17:19Actually, the French marshal, Lannes, wrote letters home saying
0:17:19 > 0:17:23he had been taught to fight against soldiers, but not against madmen.
0:17:23 > 0:17:25In this case, he was fighting madmen.
0:17:25 > 0:17:29- He was not used to this kind of war. - And women and children.
0:17:29 > 0:17:32Madmen, madwoman, mad children.
0:17:32 > 0:17:35Clearly, this frieze has been made
0:17:35 > 0:17:39with some knowledge of Goya's image.
0:17:39 > 0:17:40This image is iconic.
0:17:40 > 0:17:44But in some ways, what the artist has chosen to do
0:17:44 > 0:17:47is to effectively add some naturalism to it,
0:17:47 > 0:17:50to depict the event with an effective realism,
0:17:50 > 0:17:54which clearly highlights the fact that Goya was not concerned
0:17:54 > 0:17:57with a naturalistic representation of the event.
0:17:57 > 0:17:59So what is Goya doing?
0:18:02 > 0:18:05It's clear from this that Goya's Disasters Of War is far more
0:18:05 > 0:18:09than a simple pictorial document of the Napoleonic War in Spain.
0:18:11 > 0:18:13One of the reasons Goya is so compelling
0:18:13 > 0:18:17is that there is a strict continuity between the violence of the images
0:18:17 > 0:18:21and the compositional approach he used to make the etchings.
0:18:21 > 0:18:24In order for us to have to in some ways
0:18:24 > 0:18:29congeal or crystallise the atrocity of this event,
0:18:29 > 0:18:32we would have to be very generous
0:18:32 > 0:18:35in our reading of this is an actual thing.
0:18:35 > 0:18:38The symbolic importance of these things
0:18:38 > 0:18:40is less to do with the sheer content
0:18:40 > 0:18:43than it is to do with the execution of the drawing.
0:18:43 > 0:18:46And also, not just the execution of the drawing,
0:18:46 > 0:18:49but the point at which the drawing begins to break up, shatter.
0:18:49 > 0:18:53So you get these kind of things which don't pictorially congeal
0:18:53 > 0:18:56into the overall balance of the image.
0:19:00 > 0:19:02This fractured approach to the image
0:19:02 > 0:19:04is the essential element in Goya's work
0:19:04 > 0:19:06and it was there even at the very beginning.
0:19:09 > 0:19:12Whilst in Zaragoza, I went to see two of his early commissions
0:19:12 > 0:19:14on the ceiling of the city's cathedral.
0:19:17 > 0:19:18You get a real sense
0:19:18 > 0:19:21of the institutional magnitude of the Catholic Church,
0:19:21 > 0:19:26an institution that Goya was fully immersed in.
0:19:28 > 0:19:33Something which would later become paradoxical to him
0:19:33 > 0:19:37in terms of his infatuation with the idea of enlightenment,
0:19:37 > 0:19:38which in itself...
0:19:41 > 0:19:45..poses religion as superstition.
0:19:51 > 0:19:55The feet have been worn by people kissing them.
0:19:55 > 0:19:57Amazing, there's a wig.
0:20:06 > 0:20:10Goya's first commission for the Catholic Church,
0:20:10 > 0:20:14which was painted in 1772.
0:20:14 > 0:20:18And if you look to the right,
0:20:18 > 0:20:23you can see some, ironically, bomb damage from the Spanish Civil War.
0:20:25 > 0:20:28PRIEST AND CONGREGATION SINGING
0:20:38 > 0:20:42These two paintings are made as sketches
0:20:42 > 0:20:46in preparation for the main painting up here on the ceiling.
0:20:50 > 0:20:52A really strange perspective.
0:20:53 > 0:20:55But I think even with this,
0:20:55 > 0:20:59you can see a strange looseness to the paintwork.
0:20:59 > 0:21:02Things don't seem to congeal into solid shapes.
0:21:02 > 0:21:06They always seem to have a certain transparency to them,
0:21:06 > 0:21:09which I think is a hint of what's to come.
0:21:14 > 0:21:16If you look at those early Goya pieces,
0:21:16 > 0:21:21even literally on the ceiling of the Zaragoza Cathedral,
0:21:21 > 0:21:24those things are... they have a sort of opacity to them -
0:21:24 > 0:21:27they're ethereal, they kind of float.
0:21:27 > 0:21:29They kind of allude to some idea
0:21:29 > 0:21:31of some metaphysical sort of higher plane.
0:21:31 > 0:21:36Whereas the images in Disasters Of War, they are very grounded.
0:21:36 > 0:21:38But they're not grounded in certainty,
0:21:38 > 0:21:42they're grounded in the kind of temporality of flesh
0:21:42 > 0:21:44that is born and dies.
0:21:51 > 0:21:54I'm back in Madrid and I'm visiting the Royal Academy of San Fernando
0:21:54 > 0:21:57to see some early editions of The Disasters Of War.
0:21:57 > 0:21:59But most of all,
0:21:59 > 0:22:02I'm looking forward to seeing some of the original etch plates.
0:22:06 > 0:22:11I'm looking at an original plate from The Disasters Of War.
0:22:13 > 0:22:19It's quite an amazing thing to see the plate itself.
0:22:19 > 0:22:23To see the actual drawing.
0:22:25 > 0:22:26The origin of the print,
0:22:26 > 0:22:29which is kind of a very strange object, actually.
0:22:33 > 0:22:36The thing that's interesting about the plate is that
0:22:36 > 0:22:38it's the original work of art
0:22:38 > 0:22:41and yet it's only the mechanical process.
0:22:41 > 0:22:45So it's not strictly a work of art, it's not strictly an image.
0:22:45 > 0:22:47Even the problem of looking at it
0:22:47 > 0:22:49is because the image is etched into copper
0:22:49 > 0:22:52and I think these plates have been steel-faced
0:22:52 > 0:22:56to protect the surface, because copper is obviously very soft.
0:22:56 > 0:23:00So there's something quite interesting about the idea
0:23:00 > 0:23:02that this thing is the origin of the work,
0:23:02 > 0:23:04and at the same time it's not the work itself.
0:23:08 > 0:23:10So these are first edition prints.
0:23:12 > 0:23:14Goya would never have seen these.
0:23:14 > 0:23:16I'm not sure if he ever saw proofs.
0:23:17 > 0:23:20Even that is quite an interesting idea
0:23:20 > 0:23:23that the prints were produced after he died.
0:23:26 > 0:23:30I have had the pleasure of working through these images
0:23:30 > 0:23:33in various different ways, copying them
0:23:33 > 0:23:38in terms of producing little vignette sculptures from them directly.
0:23:38 > 0:23:42Also, re-drawing them, re-etching them, drawing on them.
0:23:45 > 0:23:50The idea of drawing on the work makes it more rare.
0:23:50 > 0:23:54Not OUR work, but if you diminish the numbers of available Goyas,
0:23:54 > 0:23:58it makes them less to do with being kind of mechanically reproduced
0:23:58 > 0:24:00and more specific.
0:24:01 > 0:24:04One of the things we are interested in is the proposition
0:24:04 > 0:24:09that if we drew on them, could we raise their financial value
0:24:09 > 0:24:11and use the money we could make from drawing on one set
0:24:11 > 0:24:13to buy the next set
0:24:13 > 0:24:16so that we would have an infinite series of...
0:24:16 > 0:24:18a rollover slush fund, a Goya slush fund.
0:24:40 > 0:24:42But as well as working on Goya's prints,
0:24:42 > 0:24:46we've almost finished another new work based on The Disasters Of War.
0:24:46 > 0:24:49But this time with some more familiar characters.
0:24:53 > 0:24:55This is, I suppose,
0:24:55 > 0:24:57a sort of updated version
0:24:57 > 0:25:01of the first Disasters Of War we made
0:25:01 > 0:25:05from the original etchings in toy soldier form.
0:25:05 > 0:25:11These are almost like a kind of end point, where the representations
0:25:11 > 0:25:15are much more kind of detailed and graphic.
0:25:15 > 0:25:19It seemed quite a nice idea to complete the series
0:25:19 > 0:25:21by returning to the original,
0:25:21 > 0:25:25but using all of the characters and the little figures
0:25:25 > 0:25:28that have perhaps invaded our work.
0:25:28 > 0:25:33They range from Ronald McDonald, the evil clown,
0:25:33 > 0:25:35or the clown who lost his humour,
0:25:35 > 0:25:41to...even, um, figures that have figured...
0:25:41 > 0:25:44as mannequin pieces which...
0:25:44 > 0:25:48We made a show where we included our own audience made of mannequins
0:25:48 > 0:25:54with KKK robes and Birkenstock shoes and rainbow socks.
0:25:54 > 0:25:59So there's an idea of contraction and expansion always in the works.
0:25:59 > 0:26:02So if you think about the...
0:26:02 > 0:26:04This piece...
0:26:04 > 0:26:07obviously, this is poor old Ronald who is getting his comeuppance.
0:26:07 > 0:26:11Great Deeds Against The Dead, great deeds against the clown.
0:26:11 > 0:26:15We've also expanded this work so that it is full-sized
0:26:15 > 0:26:19in Great Deeds Against The Dead, with the full-sized mannequins.
0:26:19 > 0:26:25We've also made this work on a full scale with parts from joke shops.
0:26:25 > 0:26:27Trying to work out how far
0:26:27 > 0:26:31we can actually extort meaning from this one picture.
0:26:35 > 0:26:40I think Great Deeds Against The Dead is a particularly heretic image
0:26:40 > 0:26:43because it just literally denies
0:26:43 > 0:26:48the idea that this stuff, this flesh, can ever be redeemed.
0:26:48 > 0:26:53The notion of gravity, the notion of entropy, the notion of decay,
0:26:53 > 0:26:56comparing this to redemption,
0:26:56 > 0:26:59the idea of some kind of ethereal escape,
0:26:59 > 0:27:04is a huge shift, is a massive kind of violence upon the world.
0:27:08 > 0:27:13And so it is the heresy of Goya's dead flesh that is truly radical.
0:27:13 > 0:27:16But it's not only Christian redemption that is at stake here.
0:27:16 > 0:27:18I believe this is an image
0:27:18 > 0:27:21that cannot be co-opted by a secular humanism either.
0:27:21 > 0:27:25For me, this isn't about redemption in any form.
0:27:25 > 0:27:28To see it in that way is to presume that our empathy for the subject
0:27:28 > 0:27:31can suppress its implicit horror.
0:27:31 > 0:27:33Goya undoubtedly produced
0:27:33 > 0:27:36some of the most powerful images in modern history,
0:27:36 > 0:27:39but I think to limit the work by false idealism does violence
0:27:39 > 0:27:41to the complexity of its meaning.
0:27:41 > 0:27:44At the heart of these images is a paradox,
0:27:44 > 0:27:46that the violence depicted
0:27:46 > 0:27:50is in fact essential to the very morality that it transgresses.
0:27:50 > 0:27:54In other words, in order to be good, you have to see some bad things.
0:27:59 > 0:28:03The idea of us returning to The Disasters Of War,
0:28:03 > 0:28:06remaking works associated with it
0:28:06 > 0:28:09is one way of ensuring
0:28:09 > 0:28:14a lack of progress in the work, you know.
0:28:14 > 0:28:17If we are condemned to this kind of act of repetition,
0:28:17 > 0:28:20there's no sense in which there is a forward momentum.
0:28:20 > 0:28:23Will you keep making work based on The Disasters Of War?
0:28:23 > 0:28:26We will... I promise we will.
0:28:28 > 0:28:29I promise we won't.
0:28:29 > 0:28:30LAUGHTER