The LVMH-owned, House of Ruinart recently unveiled its latest artist collaboration with David Shrigley at the Miami Beach Botanical Garden as part of this year’s Art Basel Miami festivities. Entitled Unconventional Bubbles, the interactive event featured life-sized illustrations of Shrigley’s sardonic compositions alongside an exhibition at the Art Basel Fair’s Collector’s lounge that encompassed a selection of 36 drawings, gouache paintings, three neon illustrations, two ceramic works and a door installation.
Shrigley’s practice mainly involves bold sketches of animals, humans and everyday objects with text that question overlooked societal norms and magnify idiotic, worldly behavior. He is also experimenting more with conceptual artworks and installations such s his Mayfair Tennis Ball Exchange at the Stephen Friedman Gallery in London where the artist displayed 12,160 tennis balls for guests to exchange with their personal, worn out tennis balls. “It’s ended up looking like a piece of op-art,” said Shrigley to The Guardian. “I wasn’t anticipating that.”
For his partnership with Ruinart, the artist made visual instructions of how the oldest established champagne house made its wine such as the privileged delight of crushing a grape with your hand instead of your feet or an amusing observation of a row of fancy French wine that’s “not ready yet.” The artist navigated the wine cellars of the Maison’s vineyard, having studied “the ways of the people working the vines, oenologists and other Ruinart collaborators,” as per a statement by Ruinart.
“Through his drawings, neon installations and sculptures, David Shrigley offers us a benevolent yet unbeaten path, which generates surprising interactions between nature and the different steps in the wine-making process. He also makes us more aware of the environmental commitments Maison Ruinart upholds every day. Because humour is, without doubt, one of the best ways to raise awareness,” the label continued.
In case you missed it, check out our list of must-see exhibitions at Art Basel Miami 2021.
We discourage irresponsible and/or underage drinking. Drink responsibly and legally.
Art Basel
1901 Convention Center Dr.
Miami Beach, FL 33139
