Everything That is Bad About Art | Artist David Shrigley | Louisiana Channel

I think it's very difficult to tell other people what you like as a person or is very difficult to know what you like as a person in my experience one tends to think of oneself as being somewhat more functional and dynamic than one actually is so I don't really know what I'm like I guess as a person I'm quite tall and quietly spoken beyond that hopefully I'm I'm not too much of a jerk I guess when people talk about my work they make observations that it's very much about the human condition about kind of emotional things but and that's perhaps what gives it a universal appeal but as an artist I don't think you ever set out to make any work in any particular way or what make work with any particular content I certainly never did anyway I think the work just evolves I've been making this work for but I guess my whole life in a way but certainly professionally for more than 20 years so in a way I'm so close to it that it's very difficult to have an objective viewpoint as to as to the facets of that work I'm 47 years old a lot of people lost a a parent or two by now I'm lucky enough to have saw both of mine around when I first left art school and I made this work that was sort of darkly humorous I mean my parents are quite religious okay go to church and everything and people like well what does your parent what do parents think of this work and I was sort of slightly worried about it at the time whereas now many years later they I don't really care what they think about it it's what it's what I think of them that's more important because their care is is but it's beholding unto me to provide care for their old age so they'll do as they're told now and they like my work whether they like it or not ever yeah my prior interestingly my parents have developed an appreciation for art because of my success as an artist which is really nice and you know they understand what I'm doing and there's some elements of it that I suppose they could take offense to but they don't though it was all it was seemed to be a really pertinent question as to what they thought about the work and but I think it wasn't the content of the work I mean this you can offend people by saying certain things at certain times and we can all be offended by something and but the interesting thing at that point was that my parents didn't understand that one could have a career as an artist they weren't very happy that I went to art school although they never expressed that to me they were always very encouraging but they didn't understand that you could actually there was such a career as an artist and to be honest I didn't know that either when I was asked when I left art school in the early 90s because there wasn't really a precedent for younger artists making you know being very prominent within the world of contemporary art so that was sort of interesting in that they were I remember my mother saying to me when I was perhaps 2,100 27 28 and I think I just had my first show in Copenhagen it was one of the first shows at a commercial gallery I'd done with Nikolai vana and I she's like oh so you've been to Denmark what what were you doing there and I said I had an exhibition so last night what were you exhibit I'm drawing so oh so what happens to the drawings and I fly up people buy them and she was like why and I said I don't know I guess she'd need to ask that question I guess they liked them but what would they do with them I said they put them in a frame and have them in home on the wall and she was like strange isn't it I guess it is in a way but that's sort of illustrated the fact that my parents really didn't it didn't register that I I was I had become at that point a professional artist and that's what I hopefully was going to do and that's what you know would prevent me from having to have a job and also prevent me from ever having to go back home and live with this sense so they should be really happy about it now my parents have some images of my work on their wall some drawings I've done on their war slightly more conservative images yeah they I think they threw away on my work from art school when I I think it all when I left art school it got gradually got stored in the Attic in their house and then they threw it all away and I think they actually regret that he wasn't that much of it but and they probably do regret it increasingly so as the years pass and and yeah they M it's interesting that they there was a sort of watershed moment with my parents whereby they were overnight they went from understanding nothing about what I did you know nothing about the art world what the art world was what it meant to be an artist why I would do that how I would make a living at it overnight they suddenly realized and the watershed moment was they made a documentary about me on channel 4 which is one of the terrestrial TV channels in the UK and it was like an hour-long documentary suddenly they were like okay right now we get it right understand because we just spell out for them in the language of the TV documentary on a Saturday evening or whatever and they were like all right okay so then they understood everything I didn't have to explain anything maybe I hadn't explained it properly at the time maybe I was slightly offended by the fact that they didn't registered my success I can't I can't really remember but and yeah as something was completely validated and then you know the next time I went home to visit them they were all web Jayne from church cut an article out of The Daily Telegraph about you I've kept it every time I go home oh there was an article about you in whatever but the big issue or something and some that's kind of nice I guess you one always wants once parents to register your success so they do and that's quite a nice and a nice thing that's happened and also I in the last couple years I was nominated for this art prize to turn the prize which is quite a big deal in the UK and I also got this big Commission for trivago Square in London or the fourth plinth which is quite a big deal that receives quite a lot of media coverage so every time I speak to them they're asking me about this sculpture that will happen later this year which is really nice you know and they're very excited about it and the unveiling and all that stuff so that makes me happy over the years I guess the works changed when I first started making work when when I first left art school I made work on a very small scale and I started I started making work on paper on a small scale because it was easy to make to continue making work I didn't need to have a big studio or anything and that was the reason why that strand of work evolved and and I guess I made work but I made drawings because I felt like I had a lot to say and I could say it very quickly and efficiently and I could deal with the things that I wanted to deal with and then I guess over after a while that you know that that work started to to have a place in art galleries and also became my career so I was able to do it full-time which changes what you do if you can do it all the time you you you don't have to be making work while you're having a job like sometimes literally while I had I was only a guy Lurie guide in an art gallery and I used to make drawings while I was supposed to being a gallery guide because it wasn't very well attended space and it was my job to be in the gallery for security purposes but also to provide information to the visitors about the work and we didn't have a lot of visitors so I actually got to make a lot of drawings so I yeah in fact the first few books that I made were actually made while I was getting paid to look after other people's work so there was a certain irony circularity paradox there that I was and a lot of the drawings were about how bored I was during the way they were paying me to make art about how pissed off I was working for them which was funny in retrospect so anyway now here I am I'm the artist and there's the gallery guide he's looking after my work I guess as a when I first started making art as a when I wasn't an art student anymore and became a professional artist even though I didn't really I guess there was a specific time when I became a professional in that I gave up my job and but I made work you know in that interim from leaving art school to actually having a little bit of success as an artist and yeah you never necessarily define yourself as an artist there's always that moment where people you're a party and people ask you what you do and you say I used to be at art school and now I'm doing my own thing which usually means having a part-time job being in a band and making some art but it was for me anyway so I I guess making drawing was a way to say a lot of stuff and it wasn't necessarily that I had a lot to say in that I started having lot to say it's just that in making art somehow end up saying a lot of things which is sort of slightly different from having having something that you need to express it's more that I have an a need to express if you know what I mean so I'm not I don't have this information in my head I have to tell people there's not some didactic thing it's more just a process a catharsis and all the stuff seems to come out through making work but it's not something that I'm really very conscious of in a way it's just that that's it's a residue of the process but I really enjoy that that residue because this is very text-based I suppose it's very Latin based in language so people understand what I'm saying but in a way I say stuff and then I try to figure out what it means later on so you end up yeah coming out with some pretty strange or interesting pieces of information this kind of the work often tends to be informed of missives you know telling people things that they apparently need to know yeah sometimes I sort of look back at the work and I think what the hell was I thinking what what did I mean by that and I don't really know I suppose it's just that like I said it's just the process now I'm the gallery guide for my own work just for you so this is a painting of a bird and it's blue I guess I could say could have said Big Blue Bird but you didn't need to know that it was big you already knew that right I guess you know you get the impression that it doesn't use quite yeah in in some ways not that net isn't really not necessary I suppose for me to talk about the work or to explain the work because I don't know I don't really know what the word means and I'm more than happy for other people to have their own interpretation I think it's quite important to the artwork for me exists as a proposition in the way I suppose that all conceptual art exists as a proposition in that I'm I accept that you know there will be different answers or responses to my proposition I think some people think the work is charming and wonderful and interesting and some people think some people think that the work is kind of represents everything that's bad about contemporary art in a way I both responses I'm quite happy with I think the worst response I suppose is for people just to think the works boring and and I think it's rubbish is fine you know that's okay but saying it's boring as yeah I guess that's pretty damning criticism isn't it you generally the image comes first when I'm working but not not I I tend to have a process these days which is sort of constantly evolving where are quite often write a list of things to make images of but there is just a starting point and then I'll maybe try and make an image based on that that little you know an item from that list and then I go back to add some text to it afterwards it doesn't always work like that and sometimes after a while that becomes formulaic so I stopped doing it and try and do it the opposite way around but at the moment with these works that I'm sitting in front of now they I guess they appeared through writing a list making an image and then going back to the original text and adding some saying something about it but I'm I'm interested in the way that image and text fits together and I guess it's fairly apparent I'm sort of interested in that's the slippage when I say I'm interested in it I don't necessarily mean I'm a student of that activity I just mean that somehow when it works there is a slippage and and I sort of through I know how to create a process where somehow eventually some of the works end up functioning in that way but I like image in text so I I guess I said a few times that I'm trying to make drawings that don't illustrate text and text that doesn't describe the image so there's a slippage between the two I think I'd be the most pleasurable moment since to do the most productive ones are where you become very absorbed into work and become very absorbed in us in thinking about it and in a way that that's quite for me it tends to happen I'll often make quite good decisions in the evening and work seems to come together as it were after dinner and you know maybe ten o'clock in evening I'm working and somehow things seem to come together doesn't always work like that but it's um yeah the nicest moments in the studio where you feel you somehow something just comes together in a way that you hadn't expected and I mean I 1 times to say that oh that's what artists do and that's how it is for all artists but I have no idea if it is that's just my experience of doing it and then that's how it works for me being well fed and having a cup of tea and evening and somehow it seems to to work during the daytime I I don't tend to start very early l will not really start until lunchtime but then I work into the evening so yeah I don't know get some fresh air eat some don't drink too much coffee healthy food when then it somehow works take a nap as well that's also helpful you you I never intended like bloody well offend anybody but sometimes it's you know your is going to offend somebody I don't think my works very offensive to be honest I think my intention obviously I think you have to be there has to be some point of opposition in the work you know it has to be opposed to something or asking a question making a proposition the and if point you know inevitably somebody will some people will find that I think people perhaps find my work annoying more than offensive I think I would be right in saying that but you'd have to ask somebody else I think it's good to offend people sometimes unless they happen to be a Muslim extremist I think for me art is a cathartic process it's a catharsis in the sense that if I don't do it I'm not very happy then when I am doing it I am happy I think I think it's as simple as that in a way I think for me art has a very positive effect on my emotional state and I think it obviously it's a well regarded idea that there is a school of art therapy out there that people is well recognized and the therapeutic value of art is well recognized why is it cathartic I think I think our making a lot is cathartic because you're making something you're putting something into the world you're not reacting against anything you're although the content of your artwork can be reactionary and nonetheless you're still creating something and creating things I could rather than destroying things which is usually bad unless it's weeds in your garden or vermin like rats the editing process of making the work is really important them is part of the work so at the moment I probably make at least three times as much work as I need to so that maybe 30 30 or 40 percent of it at least no the one 30 or 40 percent of it is retained and and then the other 60 or 70 percent is thrown away and that's just the way I make it because it allows you to be free and to not make work this can try somehow and because you always feel that the chances are the work the drawing that you're making at that particular time the work you're making is probably going to end up in the in the garbage so that's actually free you can do whatever you like and not worry about it and and not be afraid of making mistakes but then the editing process I suppose is particularly when you show in a commercial gallery as we are I am right now the gallerist is is always quite interested in the work that you're throwing away like could I see it and you know could we maybe keep it and think about but obviously it would never do that because although it took distorts the process but then there's the question of how did if I do decide what's good and bad and I know for a fact that other people would make a different selection sometimes quite a radically different selection from the ones I've thrown away and in a way is that problem is that problem I think it might be a problem but I just don't think about it and that's just the way it is it's part it's part of making the work it's it's like making the work making the marks on the paper in the first place I do it I can't delegate it you don't get to paint it paint the picture I do so I get to decide whether it's good or bad and if you disagree with me I don't care because I'm not going to show you the ones answer anyway anyway unless you follow me to the recycling center or something my earliest memories are drawing making drawings as a young child maybe four years old five years old the earliest memories i have i made drawings and and you know sculptures out of cardboard boxes from the supermarket it's something i've done from my entire life i think our education changes the way that you draw but for most people once they have some tuition in drawing there's the moment when they stop because they don't feel that they have the craft skills worthy of being an artist whatever that means so they stop because they feel they're not very good at it i I suppose I was relative to other other kids at school quite good at drawing so I continued and eventually went to art school so I think when I was five years old at Primary School I was probably the best at drawing in my class I would draw pictures of dinosaurs and stuff and then by the time I finished my art education when I was 22 at Glasgow School of Art that's probably the worst I drank in my class but I I guess as soon as I left art school I realized I was I could do ever I liked and I it wasn't important nobody could really tell you how to make art nobody can tell you how to makeup I think the only teaching lab is really just to facilitate that learning yourself and so maybe the work that I have made as a professional artist is it's just a step back to the time prior to any kind of education about that I had about how to make art I'm not going to say anything about that one this is a whole thing's quite positive whole because think about it you're in the hole right and you're looking out rather than you know you're not I mean so that's interesting right my mum would say something like they're very colorful ugly and dear what are they made with paint and the nice frames what kind of wood is the frame but you know my mom's just being nice my dad wouldn't say anything why not because he's just you know there's 75 years old and it's kind of difficult to get any sense out of him a lot of the time so if you asked him a question about cars he'd probably be interested in talking about it yeah I think beyond a certain point in your life you cease to be a rebel the thing that you're rebelling against is the thing that you are now and that you become the point that the thing to rebel against and I I guess I don't have any children I have a dog the dog doesn't rebel so all my friends are children and you know their kids are getting older becoming teenagers and you know it's them that are the things that their kids kick against maybe there was a point in my life where I was resistant to rebelled against something or other I felt that in a way the thing that I rebelled against the most was the is some more political rebellion rather than a rebellion against organized religion I'm oddly I'm sort of always been very privileged and even though I'm not and I was brought up in that world but I I think is very easy to poke fun it really just belief but you know I'm very interested in theological concerns you know about the nature of life and death man and God morality right and wrong and I have very strong opinions about what is right and wrong I guess so I know I'm not um I think it's a lot of Christian dogma Christian dogma particularly that is I'm familiar with that I find difficult and would prevent me I think from at this point in my life from ever pursuing Christianity as a belief system but having said that I'm still quite yeah I think my work is about uh is about those ideas to some extent and it's not whilst it's a rebellion against certain ideas it's also an endorsement of certain ideas and if I'm critical about anything in the world it's about broadly speaking about the excesses of advanced capitalism it's not about it's not a criticism of Christianity or any other religion and I think on one level the world would last I don't want society to be a theocracy I think if people maintain if people live by the values the core values of any major religion will probably be a better place you my attitude towards finding inspiration is that you have to make the work whether you want to or not and sometimes you feel inspired and sometimes you don't but if you don't feel inspired and then you don't make the work you'll never get inspiration so I make it I work you know sort of 9:00 to 5:00 albeit different times of the day or work erect a regimented amount of time and I do it whether I want to or not and I force myself to do it and that's for me that's the way to at some point though you know if you put the hours in then the work will make itself that's it that's my experience of it anyway but if you don't put the hours in the work is much more difficult you

Channel: Louisiana Channel

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Keywords: Louisiana Channel, Louisiana Museum, art, David Shrigley, drawing

Id: 24rovlfXqo4

Length: 32min 38sec (1958 seconds)

Published: Tue Aug 30 2016