Southbank Centre has launched a free smart phone app to coincide with the David Shrigley: Brain Activity exhibition at the Hayward Gallery (until 13 May). The Light Switch app, which is based on the artwork from Shrigley’s animation of the same name, currently on show at the Hayward Gallery, allows users to interact by tapping their phone screen to turn the switch on and off. The game is a test of endurance. If the users have the patience they will be rewarded!
The Light Switch app, which was created by design agency Ten4, is available on both android and iPhone, and can be downloaded from http://ticketing.southbankcentre.co.uk/david-shrigley/light-switch It is inspired by David Shrigley’s animation Light Switch (2007), which alludes to the Turner Prize-winning Work No. 227: The lights going on and off by conceptual artist Martin Creed.
David Shrigley is best known for his pared down drawings and animations that make witty and wry observations on a range of familiar social subjects and everyday situations. David Shrigley: Brain Activity is the first major survey in the UK of works by David Shrigley. Spanning the upper galleries, the show covers the full range of Shrigley’s diverse practice from the past two decades of the artist’s career, including drawing, animation, painting, photography, taxidermy and sculpture. The exhibition features some 240 works, the majority of which are new or never before shown in the UK.
Coinciding with the exhibition, Southbank Centre will present the London premiere of Pass the Spoon (5 & 6 May 2012, 7.30pm, Queen Elizabeth Hall), a ‘sort-of opera’ by David Shrigley, composer David Fennessy and director Nicholas Bone, featuring singing vegetables, a giant butcher, an ambitious banana and a panic-stricken pair of celebrity chefs. Separate press release available on request.
David Shrigley (b.1968) lives and works in Glasgow. He has had solo exhibitions at international venues including UCLA Hammer Museum of Los Angeles, Kunsthaus Zurich, Malmo Konsthall, Museum Ludwig, Camden Arts Centre and the CCA Glasgow. His work was featured weekly in The Guardian from 2005 to 2009 and he has had a number of books of his work published, most recently the retrospective What the Hell Are You Doing?:The Essential David Shrigley. He collaborated with animator Chris Shepherd on the film Who I am and What I Want in 2005. Worried Noodles, a CD released in 2007, features settings of the lyrics from his book Worried Noodles – the Empty Sleeve by artists as diverse as David Byrne, Franz Ferdinand and TV on the Radio.
In the lower galleries of the Hayward Gallery the first major UK survey show exhibition of British artist Jeremy Deller runs until 13 May 2012.
Southbank Centre is the UK’s largest arts centre, occupying a 21-acre site that sits in the midst of London’s most vibrant cultural quarter on the South Bank of the Thames. The site has an extraordinary creative and architectural history stretching back to the 1951 Festival of Britain. Southbank Centre is home to the Royal Festival Hall, Queen Elizabeth Hall, Purcell Room and the Hayward Gallery as well as The Saison Poetry Library and the Arts Council Collection.