When I heard that the Chapman brothers were going to have a show in Istanbul this year, my initial feeling was one of belatedness. Jake and Dinos Chapman's work seemed to be everywhere in the early 2000s; characterized by irreverence like so many of the young artists from the U.K. that have marked the British art scene since the 1990s.The Sum of All Evil, 2012-2013Fibreglass, plastic and mixed media in four steel vitrines214 x 128 x 249 cm (each)The Chapmans' show "In the Realm of the Senseless" has opened in Arter Gallery, located near the tunnel on the famous İstiklal Avenue, displayed across three small floors. The ground floor consists of the Chapmans' trademark works; namely, glass boxes that contain a multitude of small figurines, acting out or caught in hellish scenes. As you approach the glass cases, you might feel as though you have seen the work several times before but you have not: The exhibition guide tells us that the original "Hell" work burned in a fire. The glass cages of "World Peace through World Domination" and "The Sum of All Evil" house what appears to be thousands of Nazi soldiers in a cramped and desolate landscape, scrambling on top of each other, tearing each others' bodies apart and inflicting pain on each other. I struggled to see whether there was any other sort of human being hidden in the melee somewhere but no: The Nazi soldiers seemed to be trapped in a hell of their own making with no one else to violate, except perhaps the landscape itself. The fact that the art enthusiast can go around the work and have a bird's eye view of these hellish scenes speaks to the complicity of the viewer: We look, we theorize and we do nothing to stop the atrocities unfurling before our eyes.Next comes the "nature" scene, for those of us who are horrified by the violence that humans are capable of and want to turn to something more wholesome. This section is evocative of a generic "ice landscape" with dramatic cuts in the ice suggesting the effects of global warming. Once we manage to collect our thoughts after being exposed to so many small figures, we see that this cold seascape is populated by penguins, whales, polar bears and seals. The guide alerts us - me, at least, maybe the other visitors saw the incongruity at once - to the fact that this is an "unholy meeting of Arctic and Antarctic fauna." In that sense, it is literally a topsy-turvy world we're looking at where the top and the bottom have somehow been mixed together - indeed, in the way that holy books describe the apocalypse. The piece is called "Unhappy Feet," and we observe in the images of penguins that the title plays with standing on half-eaten carcasses of whales. There are animals stranded on pieces of ice floating in the sea - images eerily familiar from the campaigns against global warming. However, here the Chapmans draw attention to the environmental catastrophe devoid of any level of sympathy that the viewer may be feeling towards the animals. In the words of Justine from the film "Melancholia," "The world is an evil place; nobody will miss it." This includes the habitat of these animals. For the social media generation, this piece unintentionally references a clip from the Werner Herzog documentary in which one of those (un)happy feet leaves the group and goes into the wilderness by itself and indeed, it is easy to imagine Herzog narrating this horrific scene.Unhappy Feet, 2010Fibreglass, plastic and mixed media in steel vitrine216 x 171 x 171 cmAs we move towards the end of the small winding room, we are stopped by a smaller diorama of two columns of Nazi corpses entitled "Nein! Eleven." Apart from the obvious reference to the Twin Towers and 9/11, the name of the piece also seems to be the answer to a question that has, by now, come to the mind of the viewer: "Have we not already seen enough mutilated corpses"? No! There is always room for more. The title also resonates with the descriptions of Hell in the Quran. When God asks Hell if it is full, it answers: "Is there more"? suggesting it can indeed accommodate more. Indeed, so too can the dioramas of the Chapman brothers- there is always room for one more headless Nazi soldier, one more half eaten whale. Another glass case in a secluded corner of the room is called the "Altered Towers" and it contains a horrific mound of corpses once again. Only this time, the title seems to be a play on the Alton Towers, one of the oldest and most loved theme parks in the U.K. The Chapmans seem to be urging us to view this strange, forested battlefield as some kind of theme park, a site of excitement and leisure. The scene itself, with body parts tangled in tree roots, renders what ought to be a garden of Eden a Hell,calling to mind the uncanny forest in Lars von Trier's "Antichrist" where the protagonist seems haunted by similar images. When you make your way back towards the stairs and lift your gaze, you will be greeted by three Smiley banners the Chapmans have placed on the wall, seemingly laughing at the horror and confusion you have just experienced.On the first floor, the world opens up a bit and there are bigger albeit less complete and sometimes mangled figures made of cardboard, engaging in more mundane activities, standing in isolation and not trapped inChapmans' dioramas. Making your way towards the end of the room, you will find a blue tent with the words "Everyone I" written on one side. The fact that these two words alone can evoke Tracey Emin's installation shows just how influential her work has been. This reference places the Chapman brothers' firmlyin the canon of young British artists - now all in their fifties. If you go around the tent, you will see that the title of the original work is written in full: "Everyone I Have Ever Slept With," and turning to the guide, one will learn that Emin's famous installation was burned down - "in the same facility fire where their original installation 'Hell' s destroyed." ("Hell is other artists"?) The text has undertones of divine intervention and questions how the work of art can take a life of its own.The second floor, or the "attic" of the Chapman universe as it is presented to us in Istanbul, contains more disturbing works - if that is possible after the dioramas. In particular, "New Arrival," which consists of a severed head that seems to be suckling from a strange contraption that is rusted and covered in something like candlewax. Three mannequins surround the severed head;a man, a woman and a girl, all of whom have holes for eyes. The scene is completed with the faint buzz of a radio which, despite being mere white noise, sometimes transforms into a tune that sounded Turkish to my ears. I experienced it as a site-specific work, tuned into the wavelength between radio stations in whichever town it is displayed, to add to the uncanniness of the automatons standing around the "artwork," possibly suggesting that the viewer is just as disturbed and disturbing as the installation he/she has been wandering through.