HAYWARD GALLERY PRESENTS FIRST MAJOR UK
SURVEY OF WORKS BY DAVID SHRIGLEY
DAVID SHRIGLEY: BRAIN ACTIVITY
Hayward Gallery, Southbank Centre
1 February – 13 May 2012
This February, the Hayward Gallery will present the first major survey in the
UK of works by David Shrigley. Spanning the upper galleries, David
Shrigley: Brain Activity, will cover the full range of Shrigley‟s diverse practice
from the past two decades of the artist‟s career, including drawing,
animation, painting, photography, taxidermy and sculpture. The exhibition
will feature some 175 works, the majority of which are new or never before
shown in the UK.
David Shrigley is best known for his pared down drawings and animations that make witty and wry
observations on a range of familiar social subjects and everyday situations. Deliberately amateurish
and crude, they have an immediate and accessible appeal, while offering insightful commentary on the
absurdities of life, death and everything in between. Since graduating from the Glasgow School of Art in
1991, Shrigley has produced more than 7000 works on paper exploring everything from the mundane
to the sublime through text and image. For this Hayward Gallery exhibition, he will present some 80
drawings never before seen in the UK, plus around 45 larger new paintings on paper. Shrigley also
presents a brand new animation, which will be shown alongside a selection of existing films including
New Friends (2009) – an ironic twist on peer pressure – as well as Sleep (2009), Light Switch (2007)
and Ones (2009), in which the use of repetition brings familiar behaviour into view.
Dr Cliff Lauson, Curator, Hayward Gallery said: “David Shrigley: Brain Activity for the first time brings
together two decades of selected artworks from one of Britain‟s most witty and amusing artists
Shrigley‟s acute sense of humour brings to life all of his works which range from taxidermied animals to
his well known drawings.”
The exhibition will showcase the full diversity of the artist‟s sculptural work, including new works and
interventions that respond to the Hayward Gallery‟s spaces. Ranging from hand-crafted sculptures
made out of unusual materials, to larger series and installations, including 12 Large Eggs (2011),
Insects (2007) and Black Boots (2010), many of Shrigley‟s sculptures are characterised by their odd
scale, lending the works a strange, uncanny edge. Death and the macabre are recurrent themes in
Patron: Her Majesty The Queen. Chairman: Rick Haythornthwaite.
Chief Executive: Alan Bishop. Artistic Director: Jude Kelly OBE
Southbank Centre is a Registered Charity No. 298909
Trustee: Southbank Centre Limited, Registered in England No.2238415
Shrigley‟s work, treated with the same deadpan humour as the everyday. His work Gravestone (2008)
is inscribed with a mundane shopping list, while his taxidermied works include a puppy holding up a
sign reading „I‟m Dead‟ and a series of headless animals ranging in size from squirrel to ostrich. The
exhibition will also feature a specially commissioned steel gate integrating with the Hayward Gallery‟s
architecture, and a new work displayed on one of the Hayward Gallery‟s sculpture terraces.
Other exhibition highlights include a large-scale in-situ wall painting as well as a set of bronze weapons,
Swords and Daggers (2010). An early work, The Contents of the Gap between the Refrigerator and the
Cooker (1995), is a colorful strip that, upon closer inspection, reveals itself to be a pile of miniature
plasticine creatures. Additionally, a well-known series of photographs feature discreet interventions that
the artist has orchestrated in various landscapes and interiors, injecting comedic irony to otherwise
everyday banal imagery. Often extremely funny, these are the sort of scenarios you never come across
in real life, but wish you did, such as River for Sale (1999) and Lost (1996), which depicts a paper note
on a tree calling out for a lost pigeon.
Coinciding with Southbank Centre‟s annual Imagine Festival for children (13 – 26 February), Shrigley
will also present his animation The Letter (2009) which will be projected onto the exterior of the Royal
Festival Hall from dusk each day. The animation, which has never been shown in the UK, depicts an
anonymous hand writing a letter of absence to Mrs Teacher.
Also coinciding with the exhibition, Southbank Centre will present the London premiere of Pass the
Spoon (5 & 6 May, Queen Elizabeth Hall), a „sort-of opera‟ by David Shrigley, composer David
Fennessy and director Nicholas Bone, featuring singing vegetables, a giant butcher, an ambitious
banana and a panic-stricken pair of celebrity chefs.
David Shrigley: Brain Activity is curated by Dr Cliff Lauson, Curator, Hayward Gallery, and will be
accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue featuring an interview with the artist by writer Dave Eggers
and essays by artist Jonathan Monk, Martin Herbert and Cliff Lauson. Included with the catalogue, is an
exclusive 7-inch picture disc with two new spoken word tracks created specifically for the book and
presented in exclusive screen-printed packaging.
About David Shrigley
David Shrigley (b.1968) lives and works in Glasgow. He has had solo exhibitions at international
venues including UCLA Hammer Museum of Los Angeles, Kunsthaus Zurich, Malmo Konsthall,
Museum Ludwig, Camden Arts Centre and the CCA Glasgow. His work was featured weekly in The
Guardian from 2005 to 2009 and he has had a number of books of his work published, most recently
the retrospective What the Hell Are You Doing?:The Essential David Shrigley. He collaborated with
animator Chris Shepherd on the film Who I am and What I Want in 2005. Worried Noodles, a CD
released in 2007, features settings of the lyrics from his book Worried Noodles – the Empty Sleeve by
artists as diverse as David Byrne, Franz Ferdinand and TV on the Radio.
In the lower galleries of the Hayward Gallery the first major UK survey show exhibition of British artist
Jeremy Deller will open on 22 February 2012 and run until 13 May 2012. .
Listings information
David Shrigley: Brain Activity opens on 1 February 2012 and runs until 13 May 2012 at the Hayward
Gallery, Southbank Centre, Belvedere Road, London SE1 8XX
Information and tickets: 0844 847 9910 www.southbankcentre.co.uk/shrigley
Ticket Prices
Prices for David Shrigley: Brain Activity (available only 1 February – 21 February 2011)
Full Price
£8.00
Seniors 60+
£7.00
Concessions
£6.00
Students
£6.00
Young People (12- 18)
£5.50
Under 12 (out of school hours
Free
Southbank Centre Members Free
Joint ticket prices for David Shrigley: Brain Activity and Jeremy Deller: Joy in People (from 22
February – 13 May)
Full Price
£10.00
Seniors 60+
£9.00
Concessions
£8.00
Students
£8.00
Young People (12 -18)
£7.50
Under 12‟s (out of school hours)
Free
Southbank Centre Members
Free
All prices include a £1 voluntary donation in support of the Hayward Gallery and Southbank Centre
through the Gift Aid Scheme.
Complimentary press tickets
Journalists planning to cover the exhibition will receive one complimentary ticket on presentation of
their NUJ, AICA or business cards at the Hayward Gallery box office. To prearrange a press ticket on a
certain date please contact the Southbank Centre press office – details below.
For press information and images please contact Helena Zedig on 020 7921 0847
helena.zedig@southbankcentre.co.uk or Sarah Ragsdale on 020 7921 0887
sarah.ragsdale@southbankcentre.co.uk or contact the Press Office on 020 7921 0888
Notes to Editors:
Southbank Centre is the UK‟s largest arts centre, occupying a 21-acre site that sits in the midst of
London‟s most vibrant cultural quarter on the South Bank of the Thames. The site has an extraordinary
creative and architectural history stretching back to the 1951 Festival of Britain. Southbank Centre is
home to the Royal Festival Hall, Queen Elizabeth Hall, Purcell Room and the Hayward Gallery as well
as The Saison Poetry Library and the Arts Council Collection.