{"id":285818,"date":"2025-11-15T08:48:11","date_gmt":"2025-11-15T08:48:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/285818\/"},"modified":"2025-11-15T08:48:11","modified_gmt":"2025-11-15T08:48:11","slug":"old-rope-has-no-use-yet-it-will-cost-you-1m-at-david-shirleys-show","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/285818\/","title":{"rendered":"old rope has no use, yet it will cost you \u00a31m at david shirley’s show"},"content":{"rendered":"

David Shrigley rescues 10-tonne rope archive from across the UK<\/p>\n

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David Shirley<\/a> turns an old idiom into a full-scale installation<\/a> at Stephen Friedman Gallery this winter, filling 5\u20136 Cork Street in London with 10 tonnes of reclaimed rope and a glowing four-part neon. Exhibition of Old Rope brings together months of scavenging across the UK, from maritime scrapyards to climbing schools and offshore wind farms, as the British artist questions the worth of discarded materials and the value systems of the art world itself. The show<\/a> marks Shrigley\u2019s ninth solo exhibition with the gallery and almost three decades of collaboration.<\/p>\n

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Shrigley roots the work in a simple phrase. \u2018This exhibition started with an idiom. Old rope has no use. It\u2019s also hard to recycle, so there\u2019s a lot of it lying around. I thought: what if I turn that into a literal exhibition of old rope. And then say, yes, this is art, and yes, you can buy it for \u00a31 million,\u2019 he says. His signature wit cuts through as he expands: \u2018The work exists because I\u2019m interested in the value people place on art, and the idiom gave me an excuse to explore that. I think \u00a31 million is a fair price, partly because of the idea and partly because it is quite a lot of rope.\u2019<\/p>\n

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images courtesy of Stephen Friedman Gallery<\/p>\n

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\u2018old rope has no use\u2019, until it does<\/p>\n

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The artwork is built from rope originally destined for landfill, thick mooring lines from cruise ships, slim marker-buoy cords, longlines, crab and lobster pot ropes, plus lengths salvaged from tree surgeons, scaffolders, window cleaners, and offshore infrastructure, gathered by Shrigley himself<\/a> along the UK shorelines. Each section was cleaned and treated, a crucial step for rope recovered from the sea, which typically arrives heavy with salt, algae, and embedded debris.<\/p>\n

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The UK\u2019s centuries-old rope-making tradition underpins the installation, from hemp and jute lines associated with the Royal Navy to the synthetic polyester and nylon ropes common today. These modern materials complicate recycling efforts and contribute to mounting marine waste, a context that quietly shadows the mounds of coiled fiber filling the gallery.<\/p>\n

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Vast coils fill the space in layered arrangements that reveal age, wear, color, and past labor: almost-new synthetic lines sit beside sun-faded fishermen\u2019s rope, frayed climbing loops, and weather-beaten lengths twisted by years of exposure.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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towering mound of reclaimed maritime and industrial rope forms the central installation<\/p>\n

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a bright neon and the business of art<\/p>\n

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Anchoring the street-facing window is a large-scale, four-part neon reading the exhibition\u2019s title in Shrigley\u2019s unmistakable hand. Its commercial sign-like aesthetic, bright orange, blunt, and eye-catching, nods to advertising while undermining the seriousness typically associated with gallery signage.<\/p>\n

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Exhibition of Old Rope extends the themes Shrigley explores across installations, sculptures, and public works throughout his career, from the playful economies of his Tennis Ball Exchange to the irreverent monumentality of Really Good for the Fourth Plinth. Across these projects, trade, value, and the circulation of objects often appear in unexpected, participatory, or absurd forms.<\/p>\n

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His newest exhibition continues this trajectory with a tighter conceptual grip: an idiom literalized, a waste stream rerouted, and a question about value placed squarely at the center. Rope, once functional, then discarded, now becomes a record of labor, an environmental reminder, and an interesting protagonist.<\/p>\n

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coiled ropes piled into a sculptural mass, revealing varied textures, gauges, and degrees of wear<\/p>\n

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the installation spills outward in a cascade of intertwined materials<\/p>\n

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a mound built from used rope in shifting tones<\/p>\n

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the British artist reimagines the value of discarded materials and the value systems of the art world<\/p>\n

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the show marks Shrigley\u2019s ninth solo exhibition with the gallery<\/p>\n

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Exhibition of Old Rope brings together months of scavenging across the UK<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"David Shrigley rescues 10-tonne rope archive from across the UK \u00a0 David Shirley turns an old idiom into…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":285819,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[449,458,459,64,63,165009,460,134,15941],"class_list":{"0":"post-285818","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arts-and-design","8":"tag-arts","9":"tag-arts-and-design","10":"tag-artsanddesign","11":"tag-au","12":"tag-australia","13":"tag-david-shrigley","14":"tag-design","15":"tag-entertainment","16":"tag-exhibitions"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285818","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=285818"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285818\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/285819"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=285818"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=285818"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=285818"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}