Yumiko Chiba Associates viewing room shinjuku is pleased to present New Drawings, a solo show of David Shrigley from Thursday, November 2, 2017.
Born in Macclesfield in Northern England in 1968, David Shrigley graduated from the Glasgow School of Art, Scotland's only public self-governing art school. He is currently based in London, and is actively engaged in various projects there.
In 2012, while still in his mid-career, David Shrigley had his retrospective show titled Brain Activity held at Hayward Gallery in London, which led him to be nominated for the renowned Turner Prize awarded to artists living in England in 2013. He is one of the representative artists in the generation of Post YBAs (Young British Artists). From installations to paintings, sculptures, photographs, films, books and music, Shrigley works in various media. He is especially known for witty drawings that capture ordinary scenes of daily life as well as for his photographic works and animations, which are full of puns, double meanings, irony and pessimism characteristic to English humour.
His artistic endeavours are increasingly winning higher recognitions in recent years; in 2016, his bronze sculpture Really Good, was selected for the eleventh of the Fourth Plinth Commission, one of the world's most talked-about projects of contemporary art organised by the city of London, to present its shape of a huge human hand of seven metres high doing a thumbs-up gesture. (Of the four plinths at the four corners of Trafalgar Square, the Fourth plinth is the one located in the northwest. Currently, the city of London organises the commission projects for the plinth and artists such as Mark Quinn, Antony Gormley, and Hans Haacke has exhibited their works there. This year, Shrigley also cooperated in the campaign titled London is Open launched by Sadiq Khan, the Mayor of London, which expressed that London is still international, united and open to the world despite the Brexit. Thus his posters are now seen all over the place in the heart of London.
In 2002, Shrigley gathered public attention in Japan for his collaboration with Yoshitomo Nara in JAM: Tokyo-London, an exhibition held at Tokyo Opera City Art Gallery in 2002. His works were also included in Private Utopia held at Tokyo Station Gallery, which showed works from the British Council's art collection, but his solo show in Japan has never been realised until very recently. Fortunately, however, the artist's first solo show in a Japanese art museum started in Art Tower Mito on October 14 this year and it is to continue until January 21, 2018, and our show will be his first solo show in a commercial art gallery in Japan.
The exhibition at Art Tower Mito comprises drawings, three dimensional works, videos, and installations. From his earliest works to the latest pieces created for the show, the exhibits will enable visitors to get the whole picture of his art. Our show, on the other hand, will focus on his drawings in which the expressions are the most symbolic among all his works. In 2014, Shrigley created a large installation work with his drawings filling the whole space of Sketch, a high-end cafe in London. Our show will present the recent works for the drawing series presented in the cafe.
With a unique sense of humour and an excellent sense of balance, Shrigley urges the viewers to 'think' through the appreciation of his works and creates a new relationship between art works and the world that we live in. He is certainly a rare artist who not only draws the attentions of the organisations in the art world like museums, galleries or other institutions but has also been capable of achieving a great success with projects for the mass such as music video creations, the productions of T-shirts and other merchandise, and book publications without ever losing his critical perspectives. The most notable point about his work is that they trigger the laughter of even those who are normally not particularly interested in art; it is the kind of art that everyone is able to enjoy. His art is indeed an embodiment of his own words: Art for Everyone.
It is our great pleasure to present the splendid world of David Shrigley filled with humour and satires. Visit the show and you are sure to be fascinated by the charm that each piece possesses.
In Association With: British Council. Support: MITO ARTS FOUNDATION, Tokyo University of the Arts Photography Center, Stephen Friedman Gallery (London).
Press release courtesy Yumiko Chiba Associates.
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