Exhibition Review

The first exhibition I went to was the Jeremy Dellar 'Joy in People' installation on the ground floor. The first thing I noticed was there was a lot of space around the rooms as the pieces were in there own neat corners. I first went to the artist's bedroom to have a look around at the art work I found in the draws and cupboards. I didn't understand every piece I saw as it seems that to understand everything you had to read the background information next to each piece and the exhibition leaflets, so I had to learn as I went along. He devoted his work to the subjects he was interested in. The subjects I picked up was that he was interested in was bats, the Manic Street Preachers and Joyriding, creating some typography and 3D film about bats, which was one of the highlights of the tour.

I then went upstairs to David Shrigley's 'Brain Activity' installation, which I started to enjoy immediately as I was faced with strange objects, figures and animations. There seemed to be more activity, and I was drawn in to pieces more. I felt like I didn't need to read most of the blurb for the pieces to understand the context of the themes: I could see the fascination in decay, death, bugs and routine and this all passes through the artist's mind. The animations I thought was particularly clever as they played out like images you get in your mind: weird, vague and uncomplicated. It relates well with it's topic 'brain activity'. The drawings were also interesting as I spotted sort of parodies of famous paintings, yet made in a childish style, such as Edvard Munch's 'The Scream', which was made comedic with the caption of 'oh fuck', which is a sort of knee-jerk thought in modern society when something bad happens, which helps to explore the brain's activity.

I think I came away more inspired by David Shrigley's installation, even though I am focusing on a typographical outcome. His gave me more of a response, and tested my senses more than Jeremy Dellar, which is related to my sensory typography. Not only was his work more 3D, but was using animation, which is what I want my outcome to be: 3D and exploring animation or moving image. However, I was impressed with the 3D film of bats by Jeremy Dellar, David Shrigley used a wider range of materials which inspired me as well. Jeremy Dellar explored more with the typography, using what he liked or what he was interested in drive his pieces, and I as interested in some of his banners as well, as they also gave an illustration influence as well.