Laughing at art

We went to the Hayward Gallery today to see their "Laughing in a Foreign Language" exhibition. The first thing that struck me on entering was the seriousness of the visitors, as we read the explanations with furrowed brow, and contemplated deeply the meaning of each work. The four furry animals in a pile, supposedly an illegal immigrant family being paid to dress up this way each day. A clown walking along a green and leafy river, like Sisyphus or an Escher drawing. A video giving instructions to an illegal immigrant on how to blend in, with simple drawings to match. The battle between fire and water, with remade teapots and fans facing each other in a luminous head to head. A portrait of a family made out of pornographic pictures. A door that leads no where with a miaowing cat and a pile of keys to tempt the viewer. Three joke machines that tell a seemingly endless number of jokes when you press a button. A video of Chinese people, old and young, poor and police, dancing to some sort of electro-hip-hop. A Japanese Bin Laden who is fed up of terrorism and has been converted to sake and Japanese food. Little squiggles and sketches graffited on the walls, including a king's head that is either happy or sad depending on which eye you close.

A man dressed up as a stag performing a shamanistic ritual in a Liverpool tower block. A Cameroonian who deliberately makes himself an object of suspicion when he travels, by carrying wooden luggage or a strange walking stick. A man who gives white wet paint handshakes while wearing a smart black tuxedo. A little girl who plays with rabbits and has her own burrow in the kitchen. A box who tells his story. A stool that looks like a person bending over, so if anyone sits on it they look very peculiar indeed, like they are cruelly squashing someone. The Chapman brothers' vandalism of The Rake's Progress. David Shrigley's drawings.

I laughed at some of the jokes, the Cameroonian when his passport photo looked simply like a black blob, and the girl playing with the rabbits (and her little brother playing plastic bottle drums along with their father). The rest were interesting, but probably had more to say about migration than laughter or laughing. So lots of interesting art, but not so sure about the title!