On the Use of Comedy in Art as a Form of Social Critique.

Working collaboratively as part of the artists’ group Common Culture (since 1996) comedy has become important in our exploration of national and regional identities, as well as enabling us to address the problems arising when we have been commissioned to make art intended to socially engage with specific local communities. The session will introduce our involvement with comedy in terms of both our artistic practice and our current curatorial work for a 2016 show addressing Deadpan traditions of comedy in art from Marcel Duchamp to the present. David Campbell and Mark Durden, together with Ian Brown, work collaboratively as Common Culture. Durden is Professor of Photography at University of South Wales and Campbell is Professor of Fine Art at Northumbria University. Campbell and Durden co-authored Variable Capital (Liverpool University Press, 2007) and are currently preparing a major curated exhibition to take place at both Bluecoat, Liverpool and the MAC Belfast in Spring 2016, Double Act: Art and Comedy.