"First US Museum Exhibition of British Artist David Shrigley"
2001-09-30 until 2001-12-14
Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College
Annandale-on-Hudson, NY, USA United States of America

More than 100 works by British artist David Shrigley are featured in his premiere U.S. museum exhibition, presented this fall by the Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College. The exhibition includes drawings, photographs, and sculptures by the Glasgow-based artist. Shrigley . . . draws with a beautiful clear line yet it's his ideas that take on physical weight , according to Jonathan Jones of the Guardian.

Shrigley's hilarious and disturbing doodles, sculptures, and anecdotes depict the world as an absurd place. He embraces the paranoias, obsessions (stalking is a favorite theme), insecurities, moral conundrums, preoccupations, and anxieties of everyday life. Everyone is fair game for his humor, from the British royal family to his peers in the art world. From the childlike renderings and messy handwriting of his drawings to the spontaneous public projects documented in photographs to his playful sculptures, his work is anti-monumental and whimsical, but inherently sincere. David Shrigley takes the world as it is and provides a humorous strategy for getting on with it, according to Amada Cruz, curator of the exhibition and director of the CCS Museum.

Shrigley emerged as an artist during the 1990s and has had his work shown in Europe, Australia, and Canada. He has participated in exhibitions at the Consejería de Cultura, Madrid (2001); the Secession, Vienna (1998); and the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam (1996). His work was selected last year for both the British Art Show 5 and Beck's Futures at the Institute of Contemporary Arts, London.

A tour of European venues is planned following the exhibition's premiere at the CCS. A catalogue with essays by Cruz and Russell Ferguson, deputy director for exhibitions and chief curator of the UCLA Hammer Museum, will accompany the exhibition.

In addition to the Shrigley exhibition, there will be an exhibition of works on paper, dating from the 1960s to the present, by a diverse group of artists such as Rosemarie Trockel, Carroll Dunham, Raymond Pettibon, Kiki Smith, Jim Nutt, and Shahzia Sikander. The exhibition is drawn from the Marieluise Hessel Collection, which is on permanent loan to the Center for Curatorial Studies. Amada Cruz will curate both exhibitions.

Related Links:

Indepth Arts Resources for the State of New York

Other Important Exhibitions in New York