David Shrigley: 'It's difficult in the world of fine art to have a comic voice'
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Version 0 of 1. You live-tweeted the fire at the Glasgow School of Art. How did you feel as your old college went up in flames? I was asked to go on BBC News that night and I couldn't do it because I was really upset. I didn't feel like I wanted to be on TV. People were weeping in the streets outside, but once the fire was out everyone took stock a little bit. It's a total disaster, but when you think of decades and decades of ever more experimental mixed-media work and painters standing near pools of turpentine smoking roll-ups, it's crazy it's not happened before. But didn't you say that your teachers "didn't really know anything about art"? Yeah, it's true, I didn't really have a lot of very good critical teaching at the art school. But it's difficult in the serious world of fine art to have a comic voice. People just find it really confusing: irony is one thing but outright comedy is another. So I suppose I've suffered in that regard – suffered to some extent, but it's not like I've anything to complain about. When did your work become accepted as art? The only art scene in Glasgow at the time was figurative painting: people with long greasy hair and moustaches who were like, "I could've been a shipbuilder, but I decided to be a painter instead." Whereas me and Jonathan Monk wanted to be Andy Warhol or Marcel Duchamp, to be a dadaist. I didn't want to be some greasy painter. The change was that conceptual art could be any kind of art. I only realised what was happening because I shared a flat with Jonathan Monk, who was like, "We'll put on an exhibition in our toilet and you can do the poster for it." Douglas Gordon, Richard Wright, these people exhibited in our toilet. It was called My Little Toilet. Glasgow is hailed as the centre for new British art. Do you feel part of a scene there? A lot of those artists are my friends, but it's not like you go to Richard Wright's studio and talk about work. A lot of the time we don't know what each other is doing. What you do know is that Richard and Sarah are buying a puppy and we've lent them our puppy stuff because our dog is bigger now. So, puppies and Celtic – that's my relationship with Richard Wright, the famous painter. You were born in England but you've have lived in Glasgow for 26 years now. How will you vote in the independence referendum? I have some sympathy with some of the motivations for an independent Scotland, but I don't see how it could be a good thing for me personally and for my business interests. I feel like it's a protest vote and it shouldn't be a protest vote, because you can't redress it in four years' time – we won't get to vote for it ever again. So if I voted tomorrow, I'd vote no. Does human behaviour surprise and disappoint you? It surprises me less and less and disappoints me more and more. As you get older you develop a really cold eye to look at things. On the flight down to London, I was reading the Daily Mail. It's almost like what I would write as a character. If you ever want to see the UK in all its absurdity: unreasonable insanity, people just completely misrepresenting the world… It's kind of hilarious, but most people who read it don't see it as a bizarre comedy. That's the world in which we live. An exhibition of your work is about to open at the Gallery restaurant at Sketch in Mayfair. You've made all the ceramic tableware and done 239 drawings for the walls. Don't you dislike odd numbers? There are some light fittings that occupy the space and there are an uneven number of them. What am I going to do about that? So I'm making a small clock, which in my mind I can call a drawing, so there are actually 240 and that's fine. I just need to do even numbers – everybody does that, right? There's safety in even numbers. Do you like the idea that people will contemplate some of the recurring themes of your drawings – death, violence, sexual perversion – while they are having afternoon tea? I was aware of it. We had discussions about what was acceptable and not acceptable and apparently anything is acceptable. But we'll see; I've got some extra ones, put it that way, so we can change them in case people complain about the swear words. With the tableware, I've tried to make work that is slightly ambient and interacts with the food, so there's messages in the bottom of the teacups and the surfaces are a bit wibbly-wobbly. The teapot looks like a child's made it, but it functions and it pours, just about. You've had a busy couple of years: your first museum show, Brain Activity, at the Hayward Gallery in 2012, and then a nomination for last year's Turner prize. Was there extra pressure on that work? The Hayward show was a really, really great experience and I worked really hard on it for a long period of time. Yeah, it made me ill that show – well, only too much work and getting really stressed out. I think you only realise in retrospect when you're getting stressed. It's like, the day after they announced the winner of the Turner prize, I'd had a bad back and the day afterwards my back got better like that [snaps fingers]. Is it always stressful before a new show? I did have a little bit of an episode about three months ago. I had to go to the doctor and get beta-blockers or whatever you call them. It's weird anti-anxiety medication: I stopped taking them almost immediately, but I'd get anxious about the fact I didn't have them with me. So if I carried them around in my briefcase I didn't need to take them. But if I didn't have them, I actually needed to take them. Is it hard to make funny work when you feel like that? In a way, I find physically just being in the studio making pictures or a sculpture totally de-stresses me. I'm going away in a couple of weeksand I'm just going to take my drawing equipment, chill out and do some non-stress drawing for no reason, no end product. Next year, your sculpture for the fourth plinth – an elongated bronze thumbs-up called Really Good – will go up in Trafalgar Square. Is that still an exciting commission for an artist? It's really cool! When I made the proposal, I was slightly ambivalent about it, but then I started to think, "I'd really like to win this commission." So many people will see it, and see it through completely different eyes: people who live in London, people who are coming from, I don't know, Korea or Chile. It has all these facets to it that no other work I've made has: so yes, having my stupid sculpture among other more serious sculptures is really exciting. David Shrigley at the Gallery opens on 6 June |