David Shrigley’s drawings, sculpture, happenings and films follow the anti-art traditions of Marcel Duchamp and Andy Warhol. ‘This is not art, this is not important’. Then why did the NGV host his work and float his head-less toy swans in the moat.

The seduction of Art refusing to be Art is like a conquest behaving coy and disinterested. Its chic, its naughty but its mostly irreverent. It’s the cat and mouse game that the art world has been playing with itself since the 1880s when Modern Art decided to challenge the status quo of ‘what is Art?’

Shrigley has a mass appeal. Since 2005 he has produced a weekly cartoon for the UK’s Guardian newspaper. Michael Leunig cartoons, that have appeared weekly in The Age draw similar references, however Shrigleys message, is less emotive and more ‘slap stick’.

The exhibition came wallpapered, with roughly drawn cartoons and captions such as;

“I don’t have a head but still I must go to work”

The exhibition housed an interactive life drawing class where the live model was replaced by a naked cartoon sculpture, like a garden cupid fountain, it too, relieved itself. A motorized head entertained visitors and there were ‘boring’ films. The film of a cartoon figure sleeping ‘A Napping Station’, is a parody to the Andy Warhol film, Sleep.

The NGV website noted a remark by the English art critic Adrian Searle.

‘Shrigley’s work is very wrong and very bad in all sorts of ways. It is also ubiquitous and compelling. There are lots of artists who, furrowing their brows and trying to convince us of their seriousness, aren’t half as profound or compelling.’

The most important thing to have when examining his work is your sense of humor.