David Shrigley
David John Shrigley OBE (born 17 September 1968) is a British visual artist. He lived and worked in Glasgow, Scotland for 27 years before moving to Brighton, England in 2015.[1][2][3]
David Shrigley | |
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![]() Shrigley in 2011 | |
Born | Macclesfield, Cheshire, England | 17 September 1968
Nationality | British |
Education | Leicester Polytechnic Glasgow School of Art |
Known for | Drawing, photography, painting, sculpture, animation, music |
Awards | Honorary doctorate, De Montfort University; Turner Prize nominee |
Website | www |
Early life and education
Shrigley was born 17 September 1968 in Macclesfield, Cheshire.[4][5] He moved with his parents and sister to Oadby, Leicestershire when he was two years old.[6][7] He took the Art and Design Foundation course at Leicester Polytechnic in 1987,[8][9] and then studied environmental art[6] at Glasgow School of Art from 1988 to 1991.[10][11] Talking about his final degree show, Shrigley later told The Guardian's Becky Barnicoat, "I thought my degree show was brilliant, but the people who were marking it didn't. I got a 2:2. They didn't appreciate my genius.[…] I didn't sell anything at the show – it was 1991, before the YBAs. There wasn't a precedent for people selling work that wasn't figurative painting".[12] Before becoming a full-time artist, Shrigley worked as a gallery guide at the CCA in Glasgow.[13]
Work
As well as authoring several books, he directed the video for Blur's "Good Song" and also for Bonnie 'Prince' Billy's "Agnes, Queen of Sorrow".[14][15] In 2005 he designed a London Underground leaflet cover. Since 2005, he has contributed a cartoon for The Guardian's Weekend magazine every Saturday.[16] Other projects have included the album Worried Noodles (Tom Lab, 2007) where musicians interpret his writings as lyrics, including collaborations by David Byrne, Hot Chip, and Franz Ferdinand.
Shrigley co-directed a short film with director Chris Shepherd called Who I Am And What I Want (2005), based on Shrigley's book of the same title, with Kevin Eldon voicing its main character, Pete.[17] Shrigley also produced a series of drawings and t-shirt designs for the 2006 Triptych festival, a Scottish music festival lasting for three to four days in three cities. He also designed twelve different covers for Deerhoof's 2007 record, Friend Opportunity.[18] In the same year he also designed the title sequence for the film Hallam Foe, as well as the drawings and the writing in Hallam's on-screen diaries.

In 2014, Jonathan Jones reviewed Shrigley's work Brass Tooth, writing, "David Shrigley must have had a big, toothy grin when he created multiple editions of his sculpture Brass Tooth, which goes on sale for £1,200 a pop at the London art fair this week. It is a cast of a single tooth – including the roots – and is typical of Shrigley's sly, subversive, humorous art in how it brings a modern art cliche crashing down to Earth".[19]
In 2015, he designed "Kingsley", a mascot for Scottish football team Partick Thistle as part of a sponsorship deal. The mascot's design was the object of some amusement, with Scottish BuzzFeed reporter Jamie Ross describing it as "based on every nightmare I had as a child."[20][21][22][23]
Shrigley's sculpture Really Good was installed on Trafalgar Square's Fourth plinth in September 2016[24][25] until March 2018. The bronze cast of a fist with an out-of-proportion thumbs-up was the winning commission for the Fourth Plinth Project, which has been inviting artists since 1999 to make a proposal for the empty plinth, originally intended to hold an equestrian statue of William IV that was never made. "I made a drawing of an elongated thumb that said everything is good and I wrote some text that sounded like some sort of weird political satire: If we make this sculpture, we can make the world a better place through some kind of self–fulfilling prophecy.”[26]
In 2019, he designed the yellow and red card of the AS Velasca.[27]
Shrigley was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2020 New Year Honours for services to visual arts.[28]
Exhibitions
Recent notable solo exhibitions include Animate, Turku Art Museum, Finland (2011); Kelvingrove Museum, Glasgow International Festival of Visual Arts, Glasgow, Scotland (2010); New Powers, Kunsthalle Mainz, Germany (2009); David Shrigley, Museum Ludwig, Cologne, Germany (2008); Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead, UK (2008); Everything Must Have a Name, Malmö Konsthall, Malmo, Sweden (2007) and David Shrigley, Dundee Contemporary Arts, Dundee, Scotland (2006).[29]
Jason Mraz took the name of his album We Sing. We Dance. We Steal Things. from a work by Shrigley.[30]
In January 2016, Shrigley's work was part of a British Council-organised touring exhibition.[31] Previewing the touring David Shrigley: Lose Your Mind exhibition before it opened in Guadalajara, Mexico, BBC Arts said: "Best known for his crudely composed and mordantly humorous cartoons, David Shrigley is a highly popular British artist […] Featuring works as diverse as cartoonish ceramic boots, doodle-like drawings and a headless, stuffed ostrich, the exhibition highlights Shrigley's lively, irreverent imagination in full flow".[32] In the same month, he contributed to the Liverpool Provocations event in Liverpool's city centre.[33]
Publications
- This Is A Paper Trinket For You To Wear
- How Are You Feeling
- To Make Meringue You Must
- Man in a Room
- Do Not Bend
- The Book of Shrigley
- Ants Have Sex in Your Beer
- Slug Trails
- Merry Eczema
- Blanket of Filth
- Enquire Within
- Let Not These Shadows Fall Upon Thee
- Err
- Drawings Done Whilst on the Phone To Idiot
- Why We Got The Sack From The Museum
- Centre Parting
- Order of Service
- To Make Meringue You Must Beat The Egg Whites Until They Look Like This
- Blank Page And Other Pages
- The Beast Is Near
- Hard Work
- Leotard
- Joy
- Yellow Bird With Worm
- Human Achievement
- Who I Am And What I Want
- Let's Wrestle
- Rules
- Kill Your Pets
- It Is It
- Blocked Path
- Photographs with Text
- Worried Noodles – The Empty Sleeve
- Hand
- Red Book
- What The Hell Are You Doing? The Essential David Shrigley
- Fragments of Torn Up Drawings
- Weak Messages Create Bad Situations
Music
In 2006, Shrigley's first spoken word album Shrigley Forced to Speak With Others was released by Azuli Records.[34] In October 2007, Tomlab released Worried Noodles, a double CD of artists including David Byrne, Islands, Liars, Grizzly Bear, Mount Eerie, R. Stevie Moore and Final Fantasy putting Shrigley's 2005 book of the same name to music.[35] Moore went on to record an entire album of new songs set to Shrigley's Worried Noodles lyrics called Shrigley Field.[36]
His spoken word readings are used on the Late Night Tales: David Shrigley series of recordings, with a track from Shrigley closing each album.[37]
Awards
Shrigley was nominated for the 2013 Turner Prize.[38] He was awarded an honorary doctorate by Leicester's De Montfort University at a ceremony on 17 July 2014.[39]
References
- Edwin Gilson, "Five minutes with... David Shrigley, Brighton Festival 2018 guest director". The Argus (Brighton), 16 February 2018. Accessed 28 February 2018.
- "About the artist". British Council. Accessed 28 February 2018.
- "Introducing… David Shrigley". Brighton Dome. Accessed 28 February 2018.
- "David Shrigley".
- Greer, Stuart (7 February 2014). "Thumbs up for Macclesfield artist".
- Gatti, Tom (4 March 2009). "David Shrigley: the joker with a deadly punchline". The Times. Archived from the original on 2 February 2016. Alt URL
- Ramaswamy, Chitra (12 April 2010). "Interview: David Shrigley, artist". The Scotsman. Archived from the original on 18 June 2018. Alt URL
- Fisher, Glenn (2005). "What's with all the Funny Stuff?". David Shrigley. Archived from the original on 26 April 2006.
- "Interview with Bill Kenny, 2003". David Shrigley. 2003. Archived from the original on 11 October 2011.
- "David Shrigley on his childhood, Adam and the Ants and Glasgow School of Art".
- "Not Deadly Serious: Glasgow School of Art graduate David Shrigley's macabre humour has seen his show at London's Hayward Gallery shortlisted for the Turner Prize".
- Barnicoat, Becky (23 June 2015). "Before they were famous: art stars on their final degree shows". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 26 January 2016.
- Miller, Phil (27 January 2012). "A man of the people" (PDF). Herland Scotland. Retrieved 6 March 2019.
- "Bonnie "Prince" Billy – Agnes, Queen of Sorrow, Drag City". www.dragcity.com. Retrieved 30 January 2016.
- "David Shrigley Animations". www.davidshrigley.com. Archived from the original on 7 January 2016. Retrieved 30 January 2016.
- "David Shrigley | Paddle8". Paddle8. Retrieved 30 January 2016.
- "Films : Who I Am and What I Want". animate!. 2005.
- Archived 24 December 2006 at the Wayback Machine
- Jones, Jonathan (15 January 2014). "Would you pay £1,200 for one of David Shrigley's teeth?". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 26 January 2016.
- Ross, Jamie. "Twitter post". Twitter. Retrieved 23 June 2015.
- "Partick Thistle unveil 'terrifying' new mascot Kingsley". www.bbc.co.uk. BBC. Retrieved 22 June 2015.
- Grez, Matias. "Partick Thistle's new mascot Kingsley: Scary or sun-like?". www.cnn.com. CNN. Retrieved 22 June 2015.
- Bull, JJ. "Partick Thistle unveil utterly terrifying new mascot". Telegraph. Retrieved 22 June 2015.
- Jones, Jonathan (29 September 2016). "Thumbs up to David Shrigley's fabulously feel-bad fourth plinth". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 5 October 2016.
- Pickford, James (15 January 2014). "Thumbs up for David Shrigley and Hans Haacke sculptures in London". Financial Times. London. Retrieved 26 January 2016.
- Alexia Antsakli Vardinoyanni. David Shrigley Interview: Thumbs up. artflyernet. Accessed 29 January 2018.
- Velasca's objets utiles. Artists Velasca. asvelasca.it. 15 June 2020.
- "No. 62866". The London Gazette (Supplement). 28 December 2019. p. N14.
- David Shrigley – Arms Fayre, 8 February 2012 – 10 March 2012. Stephen Friedman Gallery, London.
- Blair, Tom (November 2008). San Diego Magazine. CurtCo/SDM LLC. p. 46.
- Shea, Christopher D. (15 January 2016). "What's on This Week Around the World". The New York Times. New York. Retrieved 26 January 2016.
- "David Shrigley's invitation to Lose Your Mind in Mexico". BBC Online. 7 January 2015. Retrieved 27 January 2016.
- Jones, Catherine (20 January 2016). "Liverpool 'Big Mouth' is reading city shoppers' thoughts". Liverpool Echo. Liverpool. Retrieved 26 January 2016.
- "Shrigley Forced To Speak With Others – Shrigley Forced To Speak With Others". Discogs. Retrieved 30 January 2016.
- "New Cd From David Shrigley, Worried Noodles, 2007". www.davidshrigley.com. Archived from the original on 6 December 2008. Retrieved 30 January 2016.
- "Shrigley Field". www.rsteviemoore.com. Retrieved 30 January 2016.
- "LateNightTales: David Shrigely". latenighttales.co.uk. Archived from the original on 6 October 2016. Retrieved 6 October 2016.
- "Turner prize 2013: who gets your vote? | Art and design | theguardian.com". theguardian.com. 2013. Retrieved 2 December 2013.
- "Artist David Shrigley Honorary Doctor of Arts degree from De Montfort University". 22 July 2014.