Contemporary Grotesque

About

The word grotesque comes from the grottoes of Rome, where in the late 15th century artists climbed down into the buried rooms of Nero's Golden House and found painted plants sprouting into animals and heads. The term later widened to any mix of the laughable and the monstrous, from Hieronymus Bosch's demons to Goya's witches and Francis Bacon's smeared figures.

Contemporary artists use it to unsettle ideas of beauty and the body. H.R. Giger fused flesh and machinery in the creature he designed for the film Alien (1979). Folkert de Jong carves historical scenes from coloured insulation foam, with figures that seem to rot. Maria Rubinke makes sweet-looking porcelain figurines caught in violent or bodily situations, and Jake and Dinos Chapman filled vitrines with thousands of tiny figures committing atrocities in Hell (1999–2000). Look for exaggeration, body parts in the wrong places and humour that turns uncomfortable.