Dimensions: image: 240 x 264 mm support: 240 x 264 mm frame: 308 x 331 x 38 mm
Copyright: © David Shrigley | CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 DEED, Photo: Tate
Curator: This work, simply titled "Untitled," is by David Shrigley. It presents lists of children's names, divided into "Good" and "Naughty," each paired with a long-distance journey. Editor: My immediate impression is one of dry wit, almost a dark humor. The starkness of the monochrome drawing enhances that feeling. Curator: Shrigley often plays with language and categorization. Here, it is as if he is humorously highlighting the arbitrariness of moral judgement. How do you view this interplay? Editor: The piece feels like a commentary on globalization, perhaps, with children crisscrossing continents. It subtly challenges our assumptions about who gets to travel and why. Curator: I agree. The simplicity of the drawing belies the conceptual depth. The materiality and its form, a hand-drawn list, is fundamental to the work. Editor: Absolutely. It's the everyday medium that elevates it beyond mere categorization. The simplicity in the drawing underscores its deeper engagement with the viewer.
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This Untitled work is made of text, written by hand in capital letters on a piece of white paper. The page takes the form of a comparative list, divided into two halves by a vertical line ruled down the approximate centre of the paper. It is headed with the words: ‘little kids on the train, travelling long distances, across continents, alone’. The children are divided into ‘good’, heading the left column, and ‘naughty’, heading the right column. Five ‘good’ children are listed as ‘Keith (London – India)/ Wee Bruce (Toronto – Mexico City)/ Solène (Paris – Jerusalem)/ Ali (Durban – Hyderabad)/ Donald (Santiago – Anchorage)’. The ‘naughty’ children on Shrigley’s list are ‘Sarah (Johannesburg – Copenhagen)/ Nick (Lima – New York City)/ Ingrid (Marseille – Bangkok)/ Muara (Rotterdam – Colombo)/ and others’.
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