In Jake and Dinos Chapman’s vision of Hell that is, showing now until 12 July at the White Cube in St James.
In amongst the epic scenes of bloodied skeletons, flayed bodies and multiple Hitlers, an emaciated Stephen is sitting on a tank-like variant of his wheelchair on a desert island, with a beach hut and several multi-headed bikinid ladies for company.
The catalogue (now sadly sold out, so this is from memory) describes Stephen as being in Hell is he is in intellectual isolation – and makes great play of him being an incredible human being not just for his intellectual abilities (Lucasian Professor of Mathematics etc) but also his confinement to a wheelchair.
It seems Stephen is the ultimate pop reference for science – this noble brain understanding the world, while we mere mortals have trouble understanding his own existence.
In the context of the Chapman’s exhibition, though at first sight he seems a little incongrous, it makes a nice counterpoint to the (“traditional”) white coated scientists doing unspeakable things in their dirty factory, elsewhere in the diorama.
For what possible reason could Steven Hawkin end up in hell with Adolf Hitler for company? did he come up with some evil scientific discovery that we just don’t know of just yet?
Well, I’m not a believer but I understand atheism qualifies you for hell under many belief systems. I guess I’ll be joining Prof Hawking there for the same reason if we’re wrong!
It’s not a particularly Christian hell. It’s a Nazi-based hell. With Nazi skeletons and multiple Hitlers and skeletal SS troops and Nazi hammerhead sharks and Nazi pigs beheading, gouging, bulldozing and tormenting any number of people. For many of those residents of Hell, Hell is being physically tormented or abused.