David Shrigley, Really Good at Trafalgar Square, via Art Observed

Towering over London’s Trafalgar Square, David Shrigley’s Really Good has made its appearance atop one of the most coveted spaces for public art in the city of London, bringing with it the artist’s signature brand of irreverent and multivalent humor that leaves any number of interpretive avenues open for the everyday viewer.  Several years in the making, the work, an immense thumbs-up with a comically long thumb jutting up from the base of the sculpture, comes at a time when London’s position of global prominence seems in need of some healthy optimism, a note that Shrigley’s sculpture offers in ample (albeit strangely amplified) doses. (more…)

David Shrigley will install a version of his work Memorial at Central Park this summer, a towering gravestone with a grocery list engraved across its surface.  “He’s best known for a unique drawing style that makes satirical comments on everyday interactions,” says associate curator Emma Enderby of the Public Art Fund, which commissioned the piece. “It’s absurd, it’s funny but it’s also sad and poignant.” (more…)

David Shrigley, Signs (Installation View), via Anton Kern

Blending the mundane and the morbid with a healthy sense of humor and cultural subversion, David Shrigley has been producing his particular blend of cartoonish satire for over 20 years.  Trained as a sculptor, the artist has also produced a trove of ink drawings, animations and other projects that showcase his brand of wit and empathy, exploring neurosis, mortality, absurdity and even the art world itself. (more…)

David Shrigley, How are you feeling (2012). Photos on site for Art Observed by Douglas Cloninger and Samuel Sveen.

Installed April 5th, 2012, the Glasgow-based artist David Shrigley‘s dry, absurdist sense of tragi-comedy is now on display as the third “Friends of the Highline” billboard. The 25 by 75 ft billboard is located at 18th Street and 10th Avenue in the Chelsea area of Manhattan and had previously featured work by Anne Collier and John Baldessari. Known for emploring a childish aesthetic and comic wit to navigate the tense world we create for ourselves, Shrigley’s new billboard poses the question, “How are you feeling?” and provides us with an uncommon but honest response. The work speaks largely to contemporary culture and the internal pressures that attempting to “keep up with the Jones” can create. The bubbles read, “HOW ARE YOU FEELING?” “I’M FEELING VERY UNSTABLE AND INSECURE. I ALSO FEEL VERY WORRIED AND ANXIOUS ABOUT EVERYTHING.” “I ALSO FEEL TRAPPED AND I FEEL THAT I AM MUCH TOO FAT AND THAT PEOPLE ARE LAUGHING AT ME. I FEEL VERY FRUSTRATED AND DEPRESSED. I FEEL THAT I AM UNABLE TO MEET THE DEMANDS THAT HAVE BEEN MADE OF ME. I AM IN A BIT OF A RUT CREATIVELY AS WELL.”

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David Shrigley, I’m Dead (2010). All images courtesy of the Hayward Gallery.

Brain Activity, David Shrigley‘s first survey show in London, brings together choice examples of his photography, sculpture, and drawings to highlight the artist’s humor and wit. While he was classically trained at the Glasgow School of Art, Shrigley’s characteristic style today is stripped down, sketchy and, to use his own word, “misshapen.” The exhibition is organized into four basic themes: death, misery, characters, and misshapen things.”The big themes are the ones that interest me, and the ones that have the potential to be the most comic,” Shrigley says of his work. “Making artwork is kind of one of the most fun things that one can do. It’s fun, I like it.”

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