David Shrigley: Life and Life Drawing
The unique and darkly humorous work of Glasgow-based artist David Shrigley will be featured in a survey held by the artist in Australia, at the National Gallery of Victoria (NGV).
Shrigley’s survey is titled David Shrigley: Life and Life Drawing, and will feature the artist’s unique brand of avant-garde, deliberately simple drawings, that have earned him the status as a prominent contemporary artist in the art world.
With over 40 books published in his career so far, Shrigley has garnered much critical acclaim, earning him a spot as a finalist in the 2013 Turner Prize for his exhibition Brain Activity, at the Hayward Gallery, London, 2012. His work has also been featured in The Guardian’s weekly magazine.
As a self-proclaimed outsider in the artist world, Shirgley has for years captivated audiences with his work that is both simple in its form, but introspective in its focus. His work looks to capture and manifest in tragicomic narratives that reflect on the banality and absurdity of everyday life and objects, with humour as the centre lynch pin to his pieces. From animated videos for the likes of Blur and Bonnie Prince Billy, to his to books How Are You Feeling? Shrigley’s work has been said to be “very wrong and very bad in all sorts of ways. It is also ubiquitous and compelling,” by English Critic Adrian Searle.
The centre piece of the Shrigley exhibition at the NGV is Life Model 2012, which will showcase a large sculpture of a naked, ungainly man upon a plinth, and will have a focus on the form of a life drawing class. Visitors will also be able to sit around the figure and draw what they see, which will later be displayed on three walls, along with drawings of the sculpture from notable artists and celebrities.
Shrigley will also take part in a collaborative session with group participants, where he will guide them to fashion over two tones of clay into an expansive ‘clay sausage’ that is rolled out and arranged in the gallery space. Over time, the clay figure will slowly begin to crack. The intestine-like mound of clay is a humorous reflection of Shrigley’s fascination with the human internal organ and structure system.
A standalone publication, David Shrigley, Life and Drawing, will be produced by NGV and will focus on his work from Life Model.
The exhibition will commence on on Friday 14 November 2014 and will run until Sunday 1 March 2015 at the National Gallery of Victoria, in Melbourne, Australia.
—
