Walking around the gallery, you notice how normal, every day objects take on a completely different meaning when coupled with other objects or put in unnerving positions and new perspectives. The words and captions Shrigley uses are key to the exhibition's success. Even the title of the pieces (which lets face it, are so often ignored or are completely irrelevant) play a part in the joke. Take for example 'What decay looks like'. What at first appears to be a tooth checking itself out in a comical over sized mirror, is also at the same time, a play on words and leads the viewer to question the judgements they make at first glance.
A lot of the work, Shrigley has created to suggest only the object in question knows what the true meaning is. 'I'm dead' which forms part of the 'death room' features a jack russell holding up a placard as if in protest to something we are unaware of, which simply says 'I'm dead'. The steward at the gallery remarked on how interesting he found it watching people's reactions to this piece in particular and when you see it, you can understand why. The dog is very much dead, although uncannily life-like through taxidermy. What's particularly terrifying is the look in it's cute little eyes- like it really actually knows something we don't. What are we to make of this other than laugh? The dog doesn't seem to mind whether it's dead or alive, so perhaps we shouldn't either. This moral conundrum is a common topic of Shrigley's work and when you take into account his explanation; 'It's a matter of making fun of the things you could get depressed about' it becomes clear that this something is death itself. The theme of death continues with the shopping list inscribed on a tombstone. Who's shopping list is it? Did they ever get their shopping done? In a way, the shopping list distracts the viewer away from the very obvious symbol of death, the tombstone itself. It is these sorts of questions that the viewer ponders throughout the exhibition.
And what about the humour? well there's certainly plenty of it in Brain Activity. And i'm not talking about uncontrollable laughter- some pieces tickled me more than others. Particularly 'Balloon' probably my favourite of Shrigley's photographs just because I think it must have the ability to lift anyone out of a bad mood. (it's currently my desktop background- it hasn't failed yet) The works aren't pretentious, the few animations are ingenious and the sculptures? dark without being bad taste.
For me, art has to evoke some sort of emotion in the viewer. It seems fitting that in todays miserable climate, humour should if anything, be the pre-requisite.
Brain Activity is showing at the Hayward Gallery until Sunday 13 May 2012. I urge you to go!
