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David Shrigley is best known for his sardonic, absurdist or just plain weird drawings, often compiled into volumes with titles such as Ants Have Sex in Your Beer and Drawings Done on the Phone Whilst Talking to an Idiot. However his new show at the Hayward Gallery in London is making waves for its unsettling sculptures. Bringing together work from as early as 2001, the exhibition features Shrigley’s darkly funny (or disturbingly demented, depending on your appetite for the macabre) take on taxidermy.
As the reviews start rolling in, Shrigley has been tweeting his bemused reaction to the all the outrage, including, this morning:
—I did a piece of illustration for the New York Times magazine piece they did about me last weekend. It didn’t get used: pic.twitter.com/dPiq9MWC
—RT @SamanthaUpward: Who IS David Shrigley? And why should we care? Isn’t he just a dated, unfunny Glen Baxter? (retweeted by David Shrigley)
–@SamanthaUpward could be right. Glen Baxter is quality (and a very nice man): glenbaxter.com
(reply from Shrigley to SamanthaUpward)—Daily Mail article about my show at Hayward. Comments are priceless:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2094531/Deadpan-humour-British-artist-offers-darkly-comic-death-brand-deranged-taxidermy.html
Indeed, the comments are priceless, almost as priceless as some of the comically ridiculous captions Shrigley himself writes for his own work, and one has to wonder if this isn’t what he really lives for—the reaction to this exhibition may just provide him with enough material to last until the next one.
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David Shrigley’s, Brain Activity on view through May 13th at the Hayward Gallery
An overview of Shrigley’s sculptural work as featured on his website
Shrigley’s more well known drawings
Our recent post featuring Shrigley as part of the current subscription cycle at The Thing Quarterly
(Yes—we too are secretly hoping it’s not going to be a headless squirrel or something like that—will keep you posted.)
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image: David Shrigley, I’m Dead, 2010
typologica 