Among the many questions that hover over Kim Noble’s work is whether it should even be classified as comedy. There are no jokes, though you will laugh, but often it’s the reflex laughter of embarrassment as you cover your mouth with your hand and avert your eyes. Noble specialises in showing us the things we would rather look away from, whether that’s the inside of a dead pigeon, pictures of a stranger’s penis, or the indignity of old age.
With any other artist it would be easy to suppose these images are presented out of a pure desire to shock, but with Noble there’s a sense that he wants to disturb rather than offend for its own sake, to force us to confront the unloveliest aspects of modern life as a way of puzzling out the point of it...