Penis! (after David Shrigley)

Today was spent in Manchester enjoying David Shrigley at the Cornerhouse, so this comic is loosely in his style.
Read more for some amusing  nude real life pictures and to find out about paper cutting....

How Are You Feeling? sadly finishes on January 6th, so it's sort of too late to review. You may miss the exhibition's GONG, "life drawing" space, napping beds and wunderkammer style of almost wall to wall floor to ceiling prints of his art, but the beauty of Shrigleys art is that his illustrative style  lends itself well to book format, so grab one of his books and enjoy. I would recommend leaving on the coffee table or by the loo to bewilder visiting guests. I was delightfully torn between laughing at his pieces of simple and unadulterated humour, to smiling at the cleverer and more cunningly wrought pieces, and then feeling bummed out by the darker insights into humanity, depression, anxiety and the general awful things we do to one another. 

Turns out the lady in the video gets a smile in the painting

You COULD see he penis - the drawings were urm, varied.

All the drawings of that statue were being sent to the artist.

Well worth visiting is The First Cut at the Manchester City Gallery, which runs until January 27th and is certainly not one to miss.  It's an exhibition based around cutting and manipulating paper has filled a large space which takes your breath away and leaves you with a gaping, inspired smile the second you walk through the door. 

Massive hand cut and wall borne pieces of art are amazingly delicate yet sculptural in scale, with smaller pieces such as books and paper bags drawing you in to their cabinets and holding you spellbound. Eager staff were engaging with visitors, so impressed with the exhibition that they had to share their knowledge "He takes six months to produce one finished piece, then has to work in other media for 18 months to recover enough feeling in his fingers to use the scalpel again" you could see how literally painstaking the piece was. 

This is a great all rounder exhibition; very contemporary, with very visible technical effort, accessible ideas you can easily relate to the art, and ultimately beautiful to admire: pretty much anyone will find a reason to like It. The First Cut doesn't stop in the exhibition space though, explore the other excellently interpreted galley spaces and you'll find paper butterflies, a paper dress and more, as pieces mix in with and very much add to the permanent collection. 

Trees and paper is a common theme, beautifully interpreted.

Delicate birds cut from maps.

P.S. If you click the Facebook 'Like' button for this post, you get a slightly unusual post in your activity feed on Facebook. 

Thanks to Ed, whose mate Andy 'kindly' discovered this  Go on, click like and make your mates wonder what you're getting up to...
 

---