Yerba Buena Center for the Arts

The work of David Shrigley effortlessly infuses a comedic sensibility into a serious fine art practice. David Shrigley: Brain Activity showcases the diversity of the artist’s work — amateurish, crude drawings, hand-crafted sculptures made of unusual materials, and installations characterized by incongruities of scale — offering insightful and often surreal commentary on the absurdities of life, death and everything in between. Irreverent and mischievous, Shrigley’s art presents the kind of odd scenarios you never come across in real life, but wish you did.

In war-torn medieval Japan, a demon haunts the Rajomon Gate, ripping out the throats of samurai in the grove beyond. The governor sends a war hero to confront the spirit, but what the man finds are two beautiful women who look just like his lost mother and wife. Both a chilling ghost story and a meditation on the nature of war and social hypocrisy, Kuroneko mixes stunning visuals, an evocative score, and influences from traditional Japanese theater to create an emotionally devastating work. (1968, 95 min, 35mm)