Shrigley Serpent

David Shrigley was born on September 17th, 1968, in Macclesfield, Cheshire, and grew up in Oadby, Leicestershire. He took the Art and Design Foundation course at Leicester Polytechnic in 1987, moving on to study environmental art at Glasgow School of Art in 1988, where he remained until 1991. During his studies, Shrigley worked as a gallery guide at the Centre for Contemporary Arts in Glasgow.

Shrigley has had several notable solo exhibitions for his iconic visual art, including "David Shrigley" at Dundee Contemporary Arts (2006), "Everything Must Have a Name" at the Malmo Konsthall in Sweden (2007), an exhibition at the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art in Gateshead (2008), the Museum Ludwig in Cologne (2008), "New Powers" at the Kunsthalle Mainz in Germany (2009), the Kelvingrove Museum in Glasgow (2010) and "Animate" at the Turku Art Museum in Finland (2011).

In 2016, Shrigley’s work was part of a British Council touring exhibition. In the same month, he was showcased in the Liverpool Provocations event. Shrigley was nominated for the 2013 Turner Prize and awarded an OBE in the Queen’s New Years Honours List 2020. Shrigley is collected by the Stephen Friedman Gallery (London), Anton Kern Gallery (New York), the Museum of Modern Art (New York), the Tate (London) and the Royal Academy of Arts (London) among other institutions.

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Used to refer to a time rather than an aesthetic, Contemporary art generally describes pieces created after 1970 or being made by living artists anywhere in the world. This immediacy means it encompasses art responding to the present moment through diverse subjects, media and themes. Contemporary painting, sculpture, photography, performance, digital art, video and more frequently includes work that is attempting to reshape current ideas about what art can be, from Felix Gonzalez-Torres’s use of candy to memorialize a lover he lost to AIDS-related complications to Jenny Holzer’s ongoing “Truisms,” a Conceptual series that sees provocative messages printed on billboards, T-shirts, benches and other public places that exist outside of formal exhibitions and the conventional “white cube” of galleries.

Contemporary art has been pushing the boundaries of creative expression for years. Its disruption of the traditional concepts of art are often aiming to engage viewers in complex questions about identity, society and culture. In the latter part of the 20th century, contemporary movements included Land art, in which artists like Robert Smithson and Michael Heizer create large-scale, site-specific sculptures, installations and other works in soil and bodies of water; Sound art, with artists such as Christian Marclay and Susan Philipsz centering art on sonic experiences; and New Media art, in which mass media and digital culture inform the work of artists such as Nam June Paik and Rafaël Rozendaal.

The first decades of the 21st century have seen the growth of Contemporary African art, the revival of figurative painting, the emergence of street art and the rise of NFTs, unique digital artworks that are powered by blockchain technology.

Major Contemporary artists practicing now include Ai Weiwei, Cecily Brown, David Hockney, Yayoi Kusama, Jeff Koons, Takashi Murakami and Kara Walker.

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Figurative sculptures mix reality and imagination, with the most common muse being the human body. Animals are also inspirations for these sculptures, along with forms found in nature.

While figurative sculpture dates back over 35,000 years, the term came into popularity in the 20th century to distinguish it from abstract art. It was aligned with the Expressionist movement in that many of its artists portrayed reality but in a nonnaturalistic and emotional way. In the 1940s, Alberto Giacometti — a Swiss-born artist who was interested in African art, Cubism and Surrealism — created now-iconic representational sculptures of the human figure, and after World War II, figurative sculpture as a movement continued to flourish in Europe.

Lucian Freud and Francis Bacon were some of the leading figurative artists during this period. Artists like Jeff Koons and Maurizio Cattelan propelled the evolution of figurative sculpture into the 21st century.

Figurative sculptures can be whimsical, uncanny and beautiful. Their materials range from stone and wood to metal and delicate ceramics. Even in smaller sizes, the sculptures make bold statements. A bronze sculpture by Salvador Dalí enhances a room; a statuesque bull by Jacques Owczarek depicts strength with its broad chest while its thin legs speak of fragility. Figurative sculptures allow viewers to see what is possible when life is reimagined.

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