David Shrigley, Cat.

Warning:  Art rant follows.

Today at Shrigley’s exhibition in the Kelvingrove (as part of the Glasgow International Art Festival), I noticed a group leave the exhibition almost immediately after seeing this—and only this—piece, declaring it “in very poor taste.”  This set me off reflecting on Art Ideas and what determines taste level for museums.  Naturally.

For a start, the museum has an entire room full of taxidermic animals.  Did this group take issue with those, too?  Or was it just the fact that Shrigley and the dog had the audacity to call attention to the obvious, and that this shifted focus from examining the specimen to the morbid subject of its inanimate state?  Perhaps the issue was with the pose, too whimsical for a museum, or maybe even a little too human (especially with the sign) for comfort?  On the other hand, should I have been more startled by it?  Often “art exhibitions” seem to inherently involve turning off shocked reactions—for example, at last year’s National Review of Live Art, I stood in a room with 30 or so other people and watched a naked woman cover herself in flour and roll eggs down her body.  If I saw that on the street, or in a pub, or basically anywhere but an art exhibition, I would laugh or be alarmed or confused (well… I still was a little confused even knowing it was Art).  

Anyway.  Here’s a dead cat.  Maybe it’s clever, maybe it’s just “poor taste.”