David Shrigley

Platform for Art commissions David Shrigley to make new image for front cover of London Underground Pocket Tube Map

Available from November 2005

Platform for Art is pleased to announce that internationally acclaimed British artist David Shrigley has designed the latest cover of the London Underground pocket Tube map. The work is the third in a new series of art works commissioned by Platform for Art. London Underground has a long established tradition of working with artists of the highest calibre and since 2000 its Platform for Art programme has been continuing this tradition through many projects around the network.

Shrigley’s new image, an abstract tangle made up of the same coloured lines used on the Tube map itself, immediately references this iconic map. In typical Shrigley style, it takes the coloured lines and feeds them through his endlessly imaginative, creative mind and then serves them up as a simple chaotic scribble like a plate of exploding spaghetti. Bright, anarchic and humorous, Shrigley has subverted the reassuring order of the Underground map and turned it into a wriggling, teeming fiesta, echoing the absurd confusion of one of his comic characters when confronted by an extensive travel network.

Platform for Art Curator, Tamsin Dillon said, ‘This series of commissions for the Tube Map cover celebrates the superb quality and range of work being produced by established artists working today and continues London Underground’s tradition as a patron of the arts. I was delighted when David Shrigley accepted this commission: he has produced a funny, instantly recognisable work that will amuse anyone who uses one of the maps.’

Internationally renowned in both Europe and America, Shrigley has exhibited extensively around the world. His first major solo shows in London were in 1997 at both the Photographer’s Gallery and Stephen Friedman Gallery. Since then his work has been regularly exhibited throughout Britain, Europe, the USA, Australia and Canada.

David Shrigley’s art work will appear on the pocket Tube map cover from November 2005, transforming this handy leaflet into an artist’s multiple edition.

Notes for Editors:

• David Shrigley was born in 1968 in Macclesfield, and studied at Glasgow School of Art from 1988-91. He currently lives and works in Glasgow. His work has been exhibited in Europe and the USA, with prestigious solo shows in The Photographer’s Gallery, London (1997), Galerie Yvon Lambert, Paris (1999), UCLA Hammer Museum, Los Angeles and Camden Arts Centre, London (both 2002), and Kunsthaus, Zurich (2003).
• This Tube map cover will be David Shrigley’s second commission for Platform for Art: he also produced a billboard commission for Gloucester Road Underground Station in 2003. Both projects were initiated by Platform for Art curator Tamsin Dillon.
• The Tube map will have a print run of five million and will be the third in the series. The first – ‘You Are Here’ by Emma Kay – proved extremely successful, with the entire print run disappearing in record time, turning millions of London Underground customers into collectors in the space of a few weeks. The second, featuring an image by Gary Hume, was distributed last June and has proven to be equally as popular.

Platform for Art is the public art programme for London Underground

For more information on Platform for Art, its exhibitions and projects, please tel: 020 7918 4625 or email: art@tube.tfl.gov.uk or visit www.tfl.gov.uk/pfa

© 2005 David Shrigley

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