Wilfrid Wood

0:23Hello yes right.

0:35This is a geography project that I did in 1980 when I was 12 and you might see three quarts way down windsock and my 12 year old hilarious joke not wearable so the teacher said to me Willy please ensure that you write Caesar's working pen I've spoke to you about your humor just remember what I said so that.

0:57This is the early illustration of me just not be able to stop trying to trying to make jokes not particularly funny but well not funny at all but but having the urge that's a Christmas card about the same time and why it's a banana I don't know you know bananas are slightly funny so I thought it was a good idea to put Happy Christmas in there.

1:22This is something I did at college which is sort of a typical sort of work I was doing at the time which is Prince Albert and revealing himself to be a woman after college I worked a spitting image that is Roger law and that this was my kind of training ground I was there as a head builder and that's my Rolf Harris who I'm afraid has gone on to other activities at the at that time I was working at submitting image I just work for fun this is a computer programmer that I made at the time.

2:08This is one of the first commercial jobs I had which was to do the stars of the zodiac in sexual positions for Cosmopolitan magazine so I did this sort of stuff out of plasticine which I think is kind of quite a nice month my mom approved a bit and thought it was alright. So that was that was a great relief because it wasn't pornographic you know it's likely humorous but gets the point across about of these different sexual positions so I've just just run through a quickly a few other there's nothing funny about this at all.

2:52But it's by Victorian artist called Edward Lear and he was a landscape painter and natural history illustrator but he also did pictures like this which kind of surreal early poetic funny drawings Victorian drawings so he's an artist who splits his time between the two but doing his natural history illustrations and also humorous drawings like this then this I think I would call inadvertent humor this is one of George Bush's paintings well then have you've seen them they're world leaders and his dogs things like that they're absolutely unbelievable I could not I've never seen anything like it his his paintings this is David Wrigley of course who's permanently funny and I think they're incredibly brilliant you you can even get humor and conceptual art.

3:53This is Sarah Lucas sort of I mean it is in his humor it's also making a serious point about feminism I expect but as funny as why I don't think she she can't she I'm sure he would deny that.

4:11There was a funny element to it or someone like Jeff Koons and of course I absolutely love this he seems to be a bit out of fashion at the moment but this was in the show at the Hayward and I thought it was all much better when I saw the caption that said it's about the sexual humiliation of the policeman it's rare that a caption really adds to a work of art by all that added a lot to it or you get an artist like edmond de Waal who seems to have absolutely no desire to make jokes at all and you know I'm quite admire it because as I'm saved for my first picture that geography essay you know I've got a had urge to make jokes and he just makes beautiful pots that he rose up puts in Imbros on walls and and that's it back to my own stuff by contrast a lot of my chemo involves bottoms really. And I've got a portion for carry-on jokes but the problem is jokes get tiresome.

5:33This is a friend of mine said I should stop making jokes who wants some you know immediate one-liner on their mantelpiece they want something beautiful or something more subtle so what I what I'm try and do my work really is trying to be witty rather than make jokes jokes can be a bit of a one-level activity so someone like this is drawn by Saul Steinberg who was around in the 50s American it's a very witty drawing it's just of chairs but you can immediately see the sort of light love someone like Quentin Blake is witty or the way he draws every line that he makes has got kind of humor in it even some.

6:20This is my drawing of James Brown where I died when I was 13 this.

6:22But I'm not just using the example of a witty drawing it's that I remember reason I heard some on the radio saying that James Brown's rhythms were so witty you know a funny thing to say but it's absolutely true they are witty wit is a a good thing to offer to a map this is a Tori's Fox s you get wit InDesign this is from the Memphis School of Design Eve made shelves witty this is back to my own work.

6:57This is a I was going through a phase of doing slightly Memphis inspired work.

7:02This is a cow this is this is called antlers and that's a full English breakfast I thought I'd better show you one proper job because near I think everything I've showed you so far is just work that I do for myself but this was a commissioned job this was for Nike they it these had to make four heads that ended up in Nike town these were the drawings that I did originally so this is how I actually apply my work took my my attitude my work to a commercial job they wanted me to do for football supporters otherwise known as false football obsessed teenagers so I did some roughs like this out of plasticine and then got papier-mache and started making some shapes babies heads painted them and they turned out something like this.

8:13So these aren't obvious jokes but I hope that they're witty characters and that's me run just to give you an idea of scale and that's there min in Nike town right yes famous people.

8:37This is going a bit back to my kind of spitting image training famous people are great to do look if you know what they actually looked like and doing a caricature of them is enormous ly good fun and this is my version of Putin which isn't you know it squeeze a little bit sinister this one I saw a picture of him as a boy and he's very beautiful in a weird way.

9:16But I just wanted to do that thing if you know can you can you see the innocence in the boy or can you see the crafty manipulator that he's turned out to be this is baby Travis another I'm this is slightly darker humorous territory but I don't know maybe it's not suitable material to make jokes about right here to heckle at this point max Clifford these are a series that I did called The Wall of shame.

9:49So they're notorious people in the media at the moment here's another one just on the edge of what's funny this is the old man and his nurse I had much younger boyfriend at the time when I when I sculpted this.

10:11And I suddenly as I was working like realised with horror that I was depicting myself which I hadn't I hadn't realized at all when I started making it. And I've just finished off with a few dogs because that's I've got a show on at the moment which is which is dogs this is faith which is a real American dog that was born with only two I always say the wrong way two legs or or no arms but dogs don't have arms obviously Pomeranian and I disapprove of puns but I don't know if you know the the American the 70s film star Farrah Fawcett well I I couldn't resist this is the one pun I allowed myself for this show I called this one Farrah Fawcett and that's it thank you very much