David Shrigley

David Shrigley’s existential-comic sensibility takes form across many mediums, from photography and sculpture to animation and drawings

Best known for his wry and witty drawings, British artist David Shrigley has built up an artistic practice that, over the past two decades, has expanded well beyond drawing to include photography, sculpture, neon signs, animation, painting, printmaking, publishing and music. Shrigley finds humor in flat depictions of the inconsequential and the bizarre, qualities that he heightens through a deliberately limited technique. In this unusually complete look at the much-loved artist’s diverse approaches, Shrigley is revealed as a master of many media and many kinds of humor, from the black humor for which he is famed to caricature and more slapstick situations. With an immediate and accessible appeal to diverse audiences, Shrigley’s work offers an insightful commentary on the absurdities of human relationships. Published on the occasion of the artist’s first major survey show, at London’s Hayward Gallery, this beautifully produced volume includes a 7” vinyl picture-disc, featuring an exclusive recording by the artist.

David Shrigley was born in Macclesfield, England, in 1968, and studied Environmental Art at the Glasgow School of Art from 1988–1991. As well as authoring numerous books, he directed the video for Blur’s “Good Song” and for Bonnie “Prince” Billy’s “Agnes, Queen of Sorrow.” Between 2005 and 2009, he contributed a cartoon for the U.K. Guardian Weekend magazine every Saturday.

Dave Eggers is a writer, author and the founder and editor of McSweeney's, an independent publishing house based in San Francisco. Cliff Lauson is Curator at the Hayward Gallery, London. Martin Herbert is a writer and critic. He writes regularly for Artforum and Frieze, and is also European Editor of Modern Painters. Jonathan Monk is an artist, living in Berlin, whose work includes a wide range of media including installations, photography, film, sculpture and performance. His tongue-in-cheek methods often recall procedural approaches typical of 1960's Conceptualism, but without sharing their utopian ideals and notions of artistic genius.