david shrigley + flying tiger collaborate for 'strong messages' range

david shrigley and danish lifestyle store flying tiger copenhagen are putting their heads together for a new series of creations revolving around the theme ‘strong messages’. the range comes off the back of shrigley’s recent sculpture ‘really good’, making it to the top of the fourth plinth in london. the cheerily deformed gargantuan thumb has been dividing opinions in london since its release, but has placed shrigley (and his cartoon commentaries) on a new level of public exposure.

the new range of graphics cover a variety of tiger products, but are consistent with the artists brutally blunt, impishly funny sense of humor. on one of this notebooks, a painting of a rat is accompanied by the sloppily written text ‘I eat rope’, while his pencils bear tiny messages like ‘illiteracy is ok’ and ‘words are boring’ on their sides. elsewhere, a picture of a man lying prone on the floor is explained by the heading: ‘sorry I fell asleep whilst you were talking’. they are simple, playful and deeply funny drawings that don’t try to be anything other than what they are — something the artist feels strongly about.

‘for me, there isn’t a lot of difference between making a drawing and putting it on the wall in a gallery or putting it in a book or on a piece of merchandise like a notebook or a tea towel’, says shrigley, a long time collaborator with tiger, ‘the only important thing is whether it functions in each context’. thanks to his recognizable style and dry humor, many people recognize his creations before they even know they’re his. although artists have a long history of working alongside companies to produce merchandise (like jeff koons X H&M, or snarkitecture X beats) the ‘strong messages’ collection hopes to remove exclusivity from the artist-designed object rather than enhance it.

flying tiger’s products are domestic, affordable and cleverly designed items, intended for everyone and anyone. there’s an inherent humility in things they create that shrigley says he relates to. take a walk around their store — traditional scandanavian building blocks and children’s paint sets take center stage beside iPad cases, phone protectors and yoga mats — many of them bearing a shrigley graphic. ‘it’s about reaching a very big audience with art objects and for them to be very accessible. you don’t want it to be an exclusive thing. you want it to be a democratic thing,’ says shrigley.

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