Jeppe Curth: 0:00

Hi and welcome to the Collector's Edge from Nordic Art Partners. In today's episode we will dive into the world of David Shrigley, a British artist known for his humor and instantly recognizable style. With me in the studio is our art expert, Nicholas Robinson, and I'm your host, Jeppe Curth. Let's get started. It is with Alex Rotter at 400 million Selling here at Christie's.

Nicholas Robinson: 0:24

$400 million is the bid and the piece is sold. We've all heard about it. Sometimes it's front-page news Important works of art are being sold for incredible sums of money. But can you get involved and become a part of the exclusive club yourself, and how do you get started while avoiding buying the wrong things? That's exactly what this podcast is about. This is the Collector's Edge from Nordic Art Partners, a podcast for those of you interested in the mechanics of the art industry, want advice about putting money into art, or simply want to buy something for your walls, to beautify your surroundings. Whatever your objectives, it is possible to put money into art wisely, to be considered thoughtful and well informed in your choices and actions. Welcome to the art of collecting with an eye for curated beauty and practical value.

Jeppe Curth: 1:36

Hi, Nick, good morning. Good morning, how are you doing? And practical value as an artist.

Nicholas Robinson: 1:41

Well, maybe, before we get into those details, it's a little bit worth pointing out that this is a bit different, maybe, than some of the other episodes we've done, just for the reason that many of the artists that we discuss are very established, and not that Shrigley's different in that context, but very established, sort of iconic figures, having been practicing for many years, many decades in some cases, and we sort of recognize in them some sort of underappreciation of their output by the market and, as such sort of sense, an opportunity, um, in terms of acquiring their work for what we think are reasonable prices. But but shrigley's a bit different in that he is an established artist, he is a well-known, iconic artist, but he has a very particular kind of accessibility that's going for him. So so one of the things that we like about Shrigley's work is that he is, you know, produces fantastic, instantly recognizable work, is a, is a, is clearly and uh acknowledged as a leading artist, and yet getting really great pieces by him is really within the reach of many, many people. Now we can can dive into some of the, the, the biographical details which you know. They're not super, uh, relevant. I suppose there's no, you know, incredibly compelling backstory.

Nicholas Robinson: 3:18

He's a English guy born in 1968, um in Macclesfield town, near in town, in Cheshire, near Liverpool, manchester, in the sort of north northish east, sorry, northish west of England. He took a art and design course at Leicester Polytechnic in 1987, so he's in his mid to late fifties now. Uh, and then he studied environmental art at Glasgow school of art, which is a very famous art school in Britain, designed by Charles Rennie McIntosh in the end of the 19th century. He studied there at the very end of the 1980s. Um, and you know, before he became an artist, he worked as a gallery guide at the Center for Contemporary Arts in Glasgow and his first forays into making art took place there, where he used their equipment to self-publish these little books of his drawings which, as we'll come to learn, are the sort of fundaments of his practice okay, thanks, uh, so what kind maybe?

Jeppe Curth: 4:31

I think one of the thing and key thing with david is his signature style, his humor. Could you maybe put some word on that?

Nicholas Robinson: 4:39

yes, absolutely. Um, I think that's really what everyone associates with shrigley. When they think about his work, they think about his very distinctive drawing style which is, you know, it's casual, or apparently casual, seemingly casual, sort of naive, childlike. So it has a very kind of basic graphic quality which is sort of anti-precious in the way that it's done. And then the subjects that he makes are, you know, it's a certain kind of social commentary. Sometimes it's satirical, sometimes there's sort of pathos, but most often sort of humor and wit.

Nicholas Robinson: 5:25

To make satirical comments on everyday situations, to make comments on sort of human nature, human interactions, um, they're sort of curious and eccentric and they're often absurdist and they're rendered most often in bright colors, um, in this very sort of simplistic style, and and then with text to sort of explain the visual humor or situation that he's depicting. Just to give you a few examples, Um, there's I mean he's made very many over many years but just to kind of set the scene here, an example might be an image of a goose which seems to be squawking and flapping, and then a text will say stop panicking, everything will be fine. Another example hand holding an ice cream, and the text would say life is fantastic. So a lot of these observations are sort of humorous and entertaining, but there's some kind of, you know, recognition in this very deadpan way of the sort of human condition that sometimes the drawings are of people doing these things. Sometimes the drawings are of monsters or fantastic creatures and you're given a sort of a sneak peek into their inner thoughts and their fantasy life, and sometimes the sentiments or the whatever subject of the drawing is conveyed by an animal and you are privy to maybe what this animal might be thinking, and it's the whole drawing is. It becomes a sort of a thought bubble, if you like. Other examples there's one, a famous one, with a rabbit. I'm listening, but you don't make any sense.

Nicholas Robinson: 7:24

A drawing of an artist's palette. Art will save the world. So of course there's a certain idealism, an innocent idealism, in these works, sometimes An image of a bird. You will not stop me from singing my song, I will sing it forever. And oftentimes it appears that these have been dashed off, perhaps a little quickly, so that they're very loose and very playful and very immediate in the way they've been rendered. And sometimes then you will even see mistakes in them, where he's sort of crossed something out or he's misspelled a word and then he's corrected himself somehow. So there's something that's very you know. It's like the visual equivalent of a quick-witted thought that's then committed to the page in this playful, childlike, gleeful, joyous fashion.

Jeppe Curth: 8:17

One of the things that make his works available is, of course, when you just mentioned, the price. It's not a price range. One of the things is he must be every gallery's dream because he produced so much. That's also why the price is maybe a bit lower than many of the other artists we are talking about, but his work spans many forms. He makes drawings, sculptures, animation, even public monuments. How do you think his practice has been involved over time?

Nicholas Robinson: 8:46

Well, I think that as he's become more sort of successful, he's obviously had grander, more ambitious opportunities afforded to him. But I mean his first drawings from the mid-90s, I think really they're mostly monochromatic and they're a little bit more, I suppose, technically formal, a little more correct, a little more academic in the way that I mean they're still playful and they're still, I mean, there's still something about them that's sort of intentionally bad drawing in inverted commas, um, but they're a little bit more proper than they are today and I guess as his success has increased, as his confidence as an artist has increased, he's been able to loosen them up and and make them sort of progressively worse technically and still convey what he wants to convey, um with, with, with them. But, um, but yes, his practice has encompassed animations. I mean he made a music video for Blur in the early 2000s. He's done. He's published books on poetry, he's done musical collaborations, even with, you know, musical luminaries like David Byrne, where he's been responsible for some of the lyrics and music has been set to some of his text. So he's done some large scale installations. He's made some photographs and then, as you mentioned, he's done some monumental sculpture. I mean he's been awarded some significant commissions and probably the most notable or renowned public monumental sculpture commission that he's been responsible for is the Fourth. Plinth is a public sculpture monument that is allocated to a contemporary art project.

Nicholas Robinson: 10:53

In Trafalgar Square in London. There's a big square just in front of the National Gallery and there's the famous Nelson's Column with a number of bronze lions on plinths around the base of the column, but then on four other corners of the square there are other public monuments, monuments of significant historic figures, but there's an empty plinth that's been there since the middle of the 19th century and this was originally intended to have an equestrian statue of the King William IV but due to a lack of funds it was never completed. So it's been empty all this time, until the early 2000s I think, when the Mayor of London took over the management of Trafalgar Square from Westminster City Council and they initiated this public art project. So there have been various sort of interesting celebrated sculptures that have been placed there, that have become variously infamous or entertaining, or they've become an iconic thing for the public of London. And Shrigley was awarded the Fourth Plinth Commission in I forget exactly when it was.

Nicholas Robinson: 12:16

Um, anyway, that's perhaps not so important, but, uh, the work anyway is an enormous thumbs up. Now it's a sort of a, uh, a slightly ridiculous cartoony thumbs up Uh, the, the. The proportions of the, the thumbs up are very attenuated and, and, and a bit comedic, cartoon-like. Um and the. The name of the sculpture is, is called Really Good. So of course it's, you know, a little bit of a um, uh, the, the, the. The title is is sort of underwhelming and a little bit anemic given the positivity of the message. But this again speaks to this sort of deadpan delivery that Shrigley has become known for.

Jeppe Curth: 13:06

Let's talk a little bit about his market. How do you see that have been developed in the past 10 years?

Nicholas Robinson: 13:17

Well, it's been. It's definitely accelerated in that period, but I mean, he's been very you know, we talk about the importance of artists, you know, developing their own voice and having a certain kind of signature style and and of course in that respect his originality is no different. I mean, he, he's, he has the traits of other artists, who, whose whose work has become popular, but there's no doubting a work by David Shrigley, with this combination of colorful drawing combined with the text and then of course, this sort of humorous, pithy, deadpan sentiment that's attached to them. I mean they're unmistakable. So he has a very clear visual language that he's been evolving but he's had more than 120 solo exhibitions over 30 years since 1995. He's had numerous important solo museum exhibitions, including Copenhagen Contemporary, the Deste Foundation in Greece, which is one of the greatest sort of private collections developed in Europe in the last 30 years and sort of template for a major private collection that sort of transitioned into becoming a significant museum and public venue. He's had a solo show at the Rose Art Museum at Brandeis, the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne, the Pinakothek der Moderne in Munich, hayward Gallery, london Kunsthal in Bergen in Norway. So he's had a lot of significant solo exhibitions in museums as well as his long-standing gallery career, and his work is also now in many significant permanent museum collections, including moma tate art institute of chicago, museum, ludwig in cologne centre, pompidou um the tis and bonamise here in denmark, the state museum for kunst.

Nicholas Robinson: 15:23

I mean his, his work is in many, many museums. Um, he's involved with really great galleries around the world. He he's showed with Anton Kern for many years, which is a very good, pretty sort of. It's a very established gallery but it's also, you know, has a reputation for doing somewhat more edgy things than some of the more conservative, heavyweight galleries in New York. He shows with Stephen Friedman, which I suppose is somewhat analogous in its taste. In London His gallery has become a real heavy hitter over the last 20 years and he shows here in Copenhagen, I think probably Nikolaj Valner, one of the best galleries here in Copenhagen has has worked with him perhaps longer than anyone and the two of them even have a collaboration which sort of continues to develop and play on this highly popular, accessible ideal that he has. They have a store together called the Schrig shop which sells posters and prints and merchandise, really All of which is aesthetically indistinguishable from his fine art practice and means that you can kind of have a piece of his work for very little expenditure. But the thing about his work also that I think I should sort of mention is that this very intentionally kind of populist, accessible ideal is very much in keeping with his idea that art also should be something for people in general to bring into their lives.

Nicholas Robinson: 16:59

For many years there was a kind of an overarching idea in education which was called STEM, and STEM is an acronym for science, technology, engineering and Maths, and he's been a strong proponent and a real activist to change STEM to STEAM. So instead of just being Science, technology, engineering, math, it's now Science, technology, engineering, art and Math, and he's been, you know, kind of crusading for educational establishments to change their curriculums to include this and this is you know. This idea about a well-rounded education has finally been adopted by Birmingham City University in response to his call School, and they have created the very first STEAM teaching qualification so that teachers teaching young people can have much more advanced skills in computer-aided design, 3d printing, also emphasizing design and creative problem solving, to bring that into the teaching for young children so that they are much more exposed to a well-rounded art education as well as these other essential components of an education. So he's he's very much um, you know, out there kind of fighting the good fight, as well as just embodying this idea in in his work okay, so.

Jeppe Curth: 18:27

so let's get started on talking a bit about market prices, because he is accessible for many people and a meter tall work, maybe 75 wide, is around under I would say under 15,000 euro on a unique work. Yep, which is quite incredible when you also listen to his provenance and his way to the museum, institutions, recognition, all these kinds of things. What does that tell you?

Nicholas Robinson: 19:04

Well, I mean it answers. It answers the point that you made earlier that you know there's, he's able to produce a good amount of work, he can be considered prolific. So you know there's, there's no, he's able to afford to and the galleries are able to afford to make them available to people. And I suspect, given his attitude about education and about the accessibility of art for a more sort of mainstream population, I suspect that that it's his preference to not make the prices higher than they are. Um, but when you say under 15, I mean, does that mean 14 500 or is it possible to get something? I mean, I think it's possible to get a unique artwork by shrigley for like ten thousand dollars.

Nicholas Robinson: 19:51

Correct, that is correct I mean the bigger size in euro and these are the big ones, that's one 12 by 75 and these are the works that are basically a sort of a painted in acrylic on on this heavy paper.

Jeppe Curth: 20:05

Yes, exactly and then you go lower in size, then the price will be lower. I think you could get it down to around three four000, 4,000, 5,000 euro.

Nicholas Robinson: 20:14

And then it's possible also to find or to acquire black and white, sometimes black and white acrylic drawings, but also ink sort of pen drawings, even for less correct, Correct.

Jeppe Curth: 20:29

Yeah, correct. And the funny thing is here we, it's, it's, it's um. When you look at the auction, it's a very liquid market. It's just coming off auction all the time. Also, his edition works, sometimes the beat, even the unique works yeah, I've noticed that.

Nicholas Robinson: 20:42

I mean I I think it's sort of strange, I think it's you know one. He's one of these artists where his, his sort of print market is a sort of a mini art economy unto itself, like we see with, I don't know, we see with Damien Hirst prints or Warhol prints. I mean to a lesser extent than those artists, but there's a certain sort of common currency about them where they're cropping up for sale all the time. But just to look at his sort of sort of history in the art world, his record price at auction is $165,000. Now that's for a large sculptural monument which of course is a little bit of an outlier in terms of his day-to-day production. But then the next highest price that he achieved is for precisely this type of one of one meter sized acrylic painting on paper. That made $44,000.

Nicholas Robinson: 21:36

And this was for what we might term a sort of early-ish one of these works and very sort of simple and iconic in its subject matter.

Nicholas Robinson: 21:45

It's simply a large pink field, so it's very sort of visually appealing, with a sort of an empty circle in the middle with the words it's okay, and that's, you know, very emblematic of the kind of simple nail on head type, thinking that he's able to portray visually.

Nicholas Robinson: 22:05

Um, but then. But then I've also noticed that, uh, in his top 20 auction results, eight of those top 20 auction results are in fact for a print. So this sort of speaks to the point that you make where you know there are certain prints which probably are very desirable and quite iconic in his output and have a price accordingly. But then you can acquire unique works by him, you know, for the same or less, if you, you know, if you just reach out to any of the galleries or look at any of these auctions that are taking place online at any given point, you can find his work very accessible. But but again, to illustrate the the way that I was describing his works earlier, this, this print that sold eight times in his top 20 results, is an image of an elephant, a seated elephant, and the text says I must rest, my rampage is over. So again, it's silly and funny, but also there's a certain poignancy in that as well.

Jeppe Curth: 23:06

Yeah, because most the these secondary market prices below 50 000 um all of them almost so it is very accessible. Uh. Also another thing when we look into these uh artists, we also look at markets and where his works is still in the uk. He's english, I guess that's.

Nicholas Robinson: 23:22

That's a key point, but I think there's something that's a bit english about his humor actually true, but the second biggest market is the us and it's just half as big as the uk market. A key point, but I think there's something that's a bit English about his humor. Actually, true.

Jeppe Curth: 23:29

But the second biggest market is the US and it's just half as big as the UK market, so it's actually quite big.

Nicholas Robinson: 23:35

Now, is that volume of sales at auction? That's how you're able to determine that.

Jeppe Curth: 23:38

Yes, exactly Turnover on auctions Okay, it's um, um in. It was $4.5 million in 2023.

Nicholas Robinson: 23:49

Wait, that's a lot of prints.

Jeppe Curth: 23:51

Yeah, and 2.5 in the US. So the 4.5 was only in the UK, and then Japan, and Hong Kong is third and fourth. So yeah, so above 2,000 lots sold just in the UK. That's a lot.

Nicholas Robinson: 24:09

But a wide sort of global appeal illustrating the kind of simple, attractive, playful nature I mean. These are really lovely, uplifting things to have. Yes exactly yeah, yeah.

Jeppe Curth: 24:37

So for a new collector that's listen to this episode, um, where should they go? Looking as quickly his works, maybe where can they buy?

Nicholas Robinson: 24:40

it. Well, they can. They can see the work in in any of these significant museums that I've mentioned. I mean, that's the first place to kind of be able to, to see the work. But, of course, if you're looking to acquire work and you wish to see a selection of of of works, then you can look online, where you can find many options in the secondary market.

Nicholas Robinson: 25:05

But but I think, prior to that, you know, the first port of call should be the, the galleries, I mean.

Nicholas Robinson: 25:10

I mean, uh, nikolai Valna always has a nice inventory of available works, and I expect that Stephen Friedman and Anton Kern um do so similarly, um, you know, there's, no, there's not really a shortage of them, which means that, of course, it's able, you know able to to to keep the, the prices reasonable, as we've mentioned.

Nicholas Robinson: 25:31

But because they're so, so reasonably priced and because he's such a a well-known and increasingly iconic figure is very difficult to imagine them ever being worth less. Now, this is not, you know, we're not so suggesting oh, acquire David Shrigley works, and you know you'll be able to, you know, make a. So, suggesting oh, acquire david trigley works, and you know you'll be able to, you know, make a lot of money by turning them over in the near future for a substantial profit. This is not the kind of situation that we're talking about. We're talking about accessing, collecting, acquiring really, really good artwork by a globally renowned, leading artist for an incredibly affordable price, the price being sufficiently affordable that it's largely inconceivable that you'll ever sort of lose money. So it's a very stable, it's a very solid and very liquid thing to put money into, to enjoy and to, to be able to have, you know, a really top thing for a good price.

Jeppe Curth: 26:28

But if a new collector comes and see his many motives, is there something specifically that you go for in terms of a good or maybe a bad Swigley work?

Nicholas Robinson: 26:36

Well, I think, I mean, I think that the sort of the simplicity of the message is perhaps important. Sometimes there's a real kind of almost sort of profundity with the message. I mean, there's a really great image where he's made this sort of. It looks like a sort of pastiche of an abstract painting. The surface is covered in brushstrokes, it's largely grey and there's a little space, and in the little space there's a text that says a gap in the clouds.

Nicholas Robinson: 27:11

Now, of course this is a really nice metaphor for lots of things. So something like that that has that very sort of distilled message, which of course is also a positive message, that kind of thing is very nice to have. And then I would say you know the ones with the animals, you know they're proven time and time again to be the most popular ones where you have this sort of cutesy little colorful animal character and then a fun message, a life message if you like, that sort of comes from the animal communicated to you. I would say things like that are are the best ones to go for. Some of them are a bit more surreal, some of them are a bit more obscure, some of them are very I don would say the sort of simplicity and universality of, or, if that's even a word, the universal nature of the message? Um, probably would be the ideal type of thing to go for.

Jeppe Curth: 28:17

Well, I have to confess, I love his humor and I have also works at him at home, um, but do you think that's more lifestyle oriented um? Sometimes we have artists that is very also like an assets. But is he becoming an asset or is it more a life oriented taste?

Nicholas Robinson: 28:37

Well, of course, I mean, as with anything, I mean people, people buy things that they like and when, when artwork is affordable, it's very easy to say yes, I'll have one of those because I like it. I mean, um, I mean, do I think that his, his work is an asset? I mean in, in a way, I do, just because I think that is something that holds its value. Um, they've cost more or less the same price for a long time. They sell for more or less the same price at auction. I don't think that. I don't think that it's something that is some particularly, you know, striking investment type play, but I do think that, um, it's very stable, uh, very liquid, very safe repository of, you know, a modest chunk of money, chunk of money, okay, so, before we end, um, is there anything we are missing? I don't think so. I mean, I think it's really, you know, it's it's, it's it's work that is really intentionally sort of simple in many ways, or it's deceptively simple. His messaging is entertaining, but it's also, you know, a little bit sort of sophisticated in the way he combines these elements to create such a powerful sort of visual rhetoric.

Nicholas Robinson: 30:09

Very good galleries all around the world.

Nicholas Robinson: 30:10

So we know that he's got, you know, a long exhibition history, a good, solid, stable future to look forward to, where he could continue to develop his aesthetic, his market, and we can see that he's over many years, has significant career milestones, which makes us understand that there's a strong consensus about his work.

Nicholas Robinson: 30:28

In 2013, 13 years ago, he had a major mid-career retrospective at the Hayward Gallery called Brain Activity. He was a Turner Prize nominee in 2013. In 2016, he had the fourth plinth commissioned for Trafalgar Square with a big thumbs up. This then traveled in 2023 to Melbourne where it was included in the National Gallery of Victoria Triennial. And in 2015, the British Council organised a big travelling exhibition of his work which went to six different venues globally, including museums in Shanghai, seoul, mexico, and then, as recently as 2020, he was awarded the Order, the Officer of the Order of the British Empire, so an important distinction in the UK, otherwise known as an OBE. So you know, obviously there's a strong consensus about the fact that David Shrigley is an important artist who's made a significant contribution for a long time, and there are no other artists with these credentials where one can buy a work for the kind of reasonable price that we're talking about.

Jeppe Curth: 31:38

Okay, so let me give you the last question. Is Shrigley underrated or perfectly priced for where he is in his career?

Nicholas Robinson: 31:45

I think, underrated. I mean I don't know of another artist Even these relatively sort of simple works on paper. I mean, as you said, you can get a colourful, beautiful painting on paper for almost a metre in size for like 15, less than 15,000 euros. I mean, find me an artist where that is possible.

Jeppe Curth: 32:09

Well, I'll try to do that, but thank you for this time, nick. Thanks, that was it for this episode of the Collector's Edge. If you are looking for expert insights, want to make informed decisions and would like advice from independent advisors, send us an email or maybe just call us. You can find all the info on our website nordic art partnerscom. Thank you for listening and we hope to have you back for another episode. Bye.