First glimpse of Brighton Festival 2018: David Shrigley’s Life Model II opens this weekend
The first glimpse of Brighton Festival 2018 is to be unveiled at Fabrica this weekend, with David Shrigley’s interactive installation, Life Model II, launching on Saturday 14 April.
Transforming Fabrica into a classroom, Life Model II plays on the age-old tradition of life drawing classes by replacing the live model with a caricatured robotic sculpture of a (blinking) nine-foot-tall woman. Visitors are invited to sit, observe and draw the model using materials provided, with the resulting artworks displayed as part of the exhibition.
Life Model II is a follow-up to the original Life Model, David Shrigley’s Turner Prize-nominated installation of the same name. The first iteration of Life Model featured a giant sculpture of a naked man blinking and urinating into a bucket, which visitors were invited to draw and then exhibit. Reviewing the work in the Observer, Laura Cumming said: “It admits all-comers, and makes a Turner prize exhibitor of each and every one; and in their joint works the boy comes alive.”
David Shrigley explains: ‘I showed the original incarnation of the work in the Turner prize show, because I thought that people see the arts, and visual art in particular, as being elitist and inaccessible. I suppose that’s what the piece is about, that art is for everybody, and that making art is also for everybody as well. It’s a therapeutic thing, it’s something that can make you happy. For some reason, in terms of our education, the majority of us are dissuaded from making art. When we go into adulthood we stop making it when we’re about 10-years-old because we think we’re not good at a drawing, but I guess I’m a person who has built a career around not demonstrating many craft skills. Life Model for me is some kind of redress, and there’s something positive and joyful in that redress.’
Brighton Festival 2018 Guest Director David Shrigley is best known for his illustrations that satirically comment on everyday life. His animations, which accompany the installation, are a natural extension of these, bringing to life their quick-witted narratives. David Shrigley is the first visual artist to take on the role of Guest Director since the inaugural Guest Director, Anish Kapoor in 2009.
Shrigley’s offbeat take is reflected the Festivals’ eclectic programme spanning music, theatre, dance, visual art, film, literature and debate, including Brighton Festival commission Problem in Brighton, a brand new alt rock/pop pantomime, written and directed by David Shrigley himself and featuring Spymonkey’s Stephan Kreiss and Scottish actor Pauline Knowles. (Problem in Brighton, Thu 10- Fri 11 May, Sat 12 May, 2pm & 7:30pm, The Old Market). David Shrigley is also presenting an illustrated talk about his work, containing numerous rambling anecdotes. It will not be in the slightest bit boring: he has signed a written agreement to this effect, signed in his own blood. (David Shrigley: Illustrated talk, Wed 23 May, 8pm, Brighton Dome Concert Hall)
In 2011, David Shrigley wrote the libretto to a sort-of opera called Pass the Spoon, which played to sell-out theatres in Glasgow, Edinburgh and London. Two unknown video artists documented its creation from page to stage, lovingly crafting 160 hours of footage into David Shrigley: A Shit Odyssey, which will receive its UK Premiere on Mon 21 May at Duke of York’s Picturehouse.