The nominees for the 2013 Turner Prize, which will be awarded in December, are a diverse and international group of artists. They include the paintings of British-Ghanian artist Lynette Yiadom Boakye, the ‘constructed situations’ of British-German Tino Seghal, and the French artist Laure Prouvost’s film and installation work. But it is the Macclesfield-born and Glasgow-based David Shrigley whose nomination has attracted the most attention.
Shrigley’s national profile was greatly increased by ‘Brain Activity’, an exhibition of his work held in the Hayward Gallery in London last year. He is best known for his humorous but bleak cartoons which mock everyday life. He also works in other mediums such as sculpture and animation. The Turner jury said that the exhibition revealed Shrigley’s “black humour, macabre intelligence and infinite jest”. Some of the most memorable of his exhibits at the Hayward included a decapitated ostrich, a sign advertising a lost pigeon, and a blurred painting of the heads carved into Mount Rushmore with the announcement above declaiming, ‘MEN ARE FOOLS’.
Shrigley’s art has also won him fans in the music world. He has directed a Blur video, collaborated with artists such as Hot Chip and Franz Ferdinand, and has also dabbled in song writing. At the 2010 Frieze Art Fair he designed tattoos for his fans, many of whom had them permanently etched onto their skin. His work is accessible, and of the nominees he is certainly the best known artist outside the art world.
The decision to nominate Shrigley shows that he is finally being taken seriously. Rather than viewing Shrigley as a ‘wild card’, we should see his art as a reflection of how distinctions between high art and pop culture are becoming increasingly eroded in the twenty-first century. His humour is sidelong and peculiar. His playful wit may make us laugh, but
it also confronts truths about human nature we would rather ignore, often taking for his subject matter the ingrained anxiety we all have of our own mortality, and the fraught nature of intimate relationships. Although some of Shrigley’s work looks like it was completed in minutes, his art shows an original precision and wisdom, something which some artists who are more associated with ‘serious’ work lack. His nomination for the 29th Turner Prize and its £40,000 reward may lead those who argue that his work is not high-brow enough to reconsider their stance, bringing him the serious acclaim that he deserves. In the words of Penny Curtis, the director of Tate Britain and chair of the Turner jury, “Just because it’s funny, doesn’t mean it’s not good.”
