PRIMARY RESEARCH VISIT

                                          
As a group, I went to the Hayward Gallery in London, to see the exhibitions of Jeremy Deller and David Shrigley.
The first exhibition was Jeremy Deller. He describes himself as 'self-taught conceptual artist', and is an assembler of things, and a stager of 'events'. He was born in 1966 and studied Art History at the Courtauld Institute, and later met Andy Warhol twenty years later. One of my favourite pieces of work was the bedroom installation. It's an original way of showing the viewer what the artist liked and revealed a bit of his personality. It also transports you back in to those times, as it was set to be in the 1980s. Another favourite of mine was the 'Valerie's Snack Bar', because that was quite original, and was also somewhat interactive.There would actually be waitresses serving free tea, and like the bedroom installation, it gives you an insight into Deller's fondness for 'England's homemade grassroots-level culture'.
David Shrigley was the second exhibition I saw. He was born in 1968 in Macclesfield, and trained as a fine artist. He is best known for his humorous drawings of observations on daily life. But his work also extends to sculpture and photography as well as weird animated films. One of my favourite pieces of work of his were from the 'Headlessness' section: The Headless squirrel. I liked it because it was just plain weird, but it lets the viewer make up their own story as to how the animal lost its head. The  dog, with a sign saying 'I'm dead', is also good, not just because it lets you figure out how the dog 'died' but also adds humour to a serious and sometimes scary subject-death. So it makes the topic of 'death' fairly light-hearted.

During our time in the exhibition, I had to complete some tasks such as writing real and fake places in Britain, writing a postcard and sending it to myself, and drawing the 'Bez masks' from one of the pieces of the exhibition, as well as creating posters to display around the college.

In general, I did like the exhibition because it was a "breath of fresh air" from the usual gallery of looking around at paintings, and  the works were interactive. I think this quality will even draw the attention of people who aren't all that interested in art. It also links in with the exam theme, as it includes different encounters and experiences of the artist and others, and might serve as inspiration to my final piece as well.