Grayson Perry: 'The Vanity Of Small Differences' And 'New Art West Midlands' At BMAG

Grayson Perry, 'The Annunciation Of The Virgin Deal', Digital Tapestry, 2012, (Detail).

I seem to be pretty much living in art galleries at the moment, so it was no surprise to find myself walking into Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery yet again, the other day.  This time I even got paid, as I was accompanying a group of GCSE students, from the school where I work, on their trip to view the exhibition, ‘Photorealism: Fifty Years of Hyperrealistic Painting’.  I’d already spent some time with that show, (and reported on it here, at some length), so stationed myself near the nearest main exit as ‘back stop’, for the first part of the visit.  However, once the students emerged to explore the rest of the building, I got the chance to take in a couple of other attractions at the same time.

Grayson Perry:  ‘The Vanity Of Small Differences’.

Grayson Perry, 'The Adoration Of The Cage Fighters', Digital Tapestry, 2012

Many people in Britain will have seen Perry’s entertaining TV programmes about the mores of taste within the British class system [1.].  If the subject seems like an easy target, it should be remembered that class-consciousness still casts a massive shadow over British life, and Perry deals with the matter entertainingly but without condescension, generally.  He is indeed a regular and amiable presence in the British media, and I’ve already discussed his delivery of the '2013 BBC Reith Lectures'. It might be easy to dismiss him as a Media luvvy, but he is, above all, a working artist with a recognisable sociological agenda, as well as an obvious mission to communicate.  His cheerful, public embrace of a somewhat unusual brand of transvestism, (even by normal cross-dressing standards), is both psychologically revealing, and evidence that his fascination with the intricacies of social display goes beyond the merely voyeuristic.

Grayson Perry Dresses Up For A Night Out With The Girls In Sunderland.

This show provided an opportunity to view the six large-scale tapestries that Perry designed as the culmination of his project, alongside the TV shows and evidence of the research and development phases that support it all.  The three broadcasts each dealt with one of the traditional class divisions within British society, Working, (a label possibly now in need of reinterpretation), Middle, and Upper, (be it old aristocracy or new money,), but that model is, as Perry points out, too rigid and simplistic a way to view the matter in reality.  Instead, taking Hogarth’s 'Rake’s Progress’ as his inspiration, (and transforming the original protagonist, Tom, into his own Tim Rakewell), he depicts our hero’s progress through the competing tribes and shifting strata of British society and the complex distinctions and contradictions that characterise them.

Grayson Perry, 'The Agony In The Car Park', Digital Tapestry, 2012, (Detail Below).

Perry posits Tim as a bright, Working Class lad from Sunderland who, through diligence, education and aspiration, achieves success and wealth as a software tycoon.  He eventually acquires the trappings of a quasi-aristocratic lifestyle but ultimately crashes his Ferrarri, to die in a street in the homogenised, media-fixated, (and supposedly classless?) landscape we all increasingly inhabit.  If the six finished pieces could be said to fit nominally into the three basic social groupings, they also demonstrate how it is through their overlaps, and the subtle nuances within each, that the true story of contemporary social taste and expectations lie.  This is most fully appreciated whenever aspiration is given free rein or some degree of social mobility is achieved.  Borrowed from Freud [2.], ‘The Vanity Of Small Differences’ proves an apt title indeed.

Grayson Perry, 'Expulsion From Number 8 Eden Close', Digital Tapestry, 2012

Grayson Perry, 'The Annunciation Of The Virgin Deal', Digital Tapestry, 2012

There is far too much content in the six tapestries to start listing their subject matter in detail.  However, I would mention the messianic Social Club singer; complete with crucifix-like shipyard crane, meat raffle and car park boy racers, from ‘The Agony In The Car Park’, as particularly memorable.  Its sense of guileless sentimentality and tribal communality suggest that traditional Working Class ties are as deeply rooted and proudly felt as any.  I’m also rather taken with the setting for Tim’s demise in ‘♯ Lamentation’, with its petrol station, McDonalds and retail park.  It seems ironic that having climbed so high, Tim should be brought back to earth amongst the signifiers of Global Capitalism, (paradoxically, a great leveler of taste, - even as it magnifies inequality).  To close one’s eyes for the last time on such sights seems almost too cruel.

Grayson Perry, 'The Annunciation Of The Virgin Deal', Digital Tapestry, 2012, (Detail).

I think it’s fair to say that the various elements of the project, including the research phase, (or ‘Taste Safari’), the broadcasts, and the finished tapestries themselves, all play an equally important role in the overall project, demonstrating the importance of working across various platforms for many artists today.  It might also be argued that the different stages involved actually reflect the content rather cleverly.  TV is still often regarded as passive entertainment to distract the lower classes.  Research and study, (including an extensive process of drawing), might represent the process of achievement and betterment through learning and hard work.  The Tapestry is itself a traditional status symbol of the Wealthy, once being immensely expensive and labour intensive to produce, but also redolent of the elegant decay with which we might associate old aristocracy.

Grayson Perry, 'The Working Class At Bay', Digital Tapestry, 2012, (Detail Below).

Perry’s use of modern CAD/CAM techniques to realise his final pieces adds another interesting layer of context, both in further investigating the relationship between traditional craft and contemporary art, prevalent in all his work, and in symbolising how digital technology has become a significant driver of 21st Century social mobility, and transmitter of social mores.  Whilst still not cheap to produce, most of the labour and time in a digital tapestry is now spent preparing the digital files, with all that implies about artisanal status.

Grayson Perry, ‘♯ Lamentation’, Digital Tapestry, 2012

I’m impressed by the way Perry pulled off his complex compositions, packed with wonderfully observed details and clues.  If some of these seem stereotypical at first glance, it should be remembered that he observed everything first hand, during his research trips to Sunderland, Kent and The Cotswolds.  Are such clichés, clichés for a reason, or just inherently self-perpetuating?  I can also appreciate the way he has incorporated various art historical and quasi-religious visual quotations from Renaissance paintings into his composite images.  Perry wryly points out that this is a deeply Middle Class thing to do, whilst illuminating how the construction of a class-based taste identity is as much an act of faith as the religious frameworks within which all social assumptions once operated.

Grayson Perry, '‘♯ Lamentation’, Digital Tapestry, 2012, (Detail).

The concerns and modes of Grayson Perry’s work are a world away from my own, and his ‘not-really-naïve’, cartoonish, figurative style and narrative approach are unlike anything I have attempted myself, or am ever likely to.  Nonetheless, I do find his work both engaging and thought provoking.  Above all, there’s a lot of fun to be had from viewing our tribal eccentricities in his tapestries, just as there was in viewing his TV shows.

Grayson Perry, 'The Vanity Of Small Differences', continues until 11 May 2014 at: Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery, Chamberlain Square, Birmingham, B3 3DH.

‘New Art West Midlands.’

‘New Art West Midlands’ is a group show of work by a selection of recent graduates from Birmingham City, Coventry, Staffordshire, Wolverhampton and Worcester Universities.  It is actually part of a programme of exhibitions spread around a number of regional galleries, and it would take quite an effort to get round the whole thing, I suspect.  I may try to visit more of it at some point but, for now, had to be satisfied with a brief scan of the work on show at BMAG.  Such shows are inevitably a mixed bag and I didn’t have time to really find out what was going on with a lot of the work in depth.  However, two artists did stand out as being of real interest at first glance.  Both are painters, which says something about the power of immediate visual arrest characteristic of the medium, I suppose.

Santhanha Nguyen:  Nguyen is a skateboarder who uses her chosen means of transport to explore abandoned or out-of-bounds urban spaces.  Her painting ‘13’ (2012), appears rather traditional in its loose(ish) handling, veils of fluid oil paint and earthy palette; which is actually refreshing as an alternative to the predictable post-punk or wild style tropes usually associated with that scene.  It depicts the abandoned top deck of a multi-story car park, closed under H&S regulations (!) after becoming a favourite suicide venue.

Santhanha Nguyen, '13', Acrylic On Board, 2012

To be honest, much of the interest in the piece may lay in that knowledge, but Nguyen does convey something of the detached desolation of the location, predominantly by building her composition around a wide expanse of nothing very much.  She claims Casper David Freidrich as an influence, but I was also reminded of George Shaw’s ‘Back Of The Club 2’ (2001), which also dares to focus its attention on bleak architecture and a tract of empty tarmac.

George Shaw, 'Back Of The Club 2', Humbrol Enamel On Panel, 2001

Nguyen’s art practice, and her involvement with skateboarding, clearly overlaps with the concerns of other subcultures such as Urban Exploration and Parcour.  All attempt in some way to redefine our relationship with urban spaces and to interrogate the systems of power and access control applying to them.  I am also reminded of the recent dispute between the skateboarders of London’s South Bank cultural complex, and the architects and planners keen to clean up the organic, unofficial aspects of its terrain in favour of yet more bland ‘retail opportunities’.

James Birkin:  The influence of George Shaw seems even more overt in the painting of James Birkin.  He also derives subject matter from apparently mundane locations in Coventry, and I was immediately drawn to his depictions of the city’s disused ‘Mustard’ nightclub.  In ‘Seating Booth’, ‘Office’ and ‘First Floor’, (all 2013), he employs a slightly naïve brand of Photorealism to depict the desolation, and squalor of the club’s abandoned interior spaces, focusing particularly on the tawdry décor, superficial damage, and the accumulations of detritus that lend the place a Marie-Celestine quality.

James Birkin, 'Office', Acrylic On Canvas, 2013

Birkin works from flash photography and does manage to evoke the strange, artificial objectivity of such illumination in his paintings.  There’s something affecting about the shabby incongruity of such nocturnal leisure zones viewed under functional white light, and his chosen method pushes this even further.  In fact, paradoxically, the apparent prioritisation of factual investigation over subjectivity, creates a particular set of atmospherics all of its own.

James Birkin, 'Seating Booth', Acrylic On Panel, 2013

These slightly wonky attempts to faithfully describe the subjects’ complex detail reminded me of Shaw’s own faltering early attempts to master Photorealist methods.  I wonder if this is a conscious strategy or simply indicates a young painter still striving to refine his chosen style, and also, if it would be going too far to see signs of a nascent ‘Coventry School’ emerging in Shaw’s wake?  I had paused to view one of the latter’s refined mature works, just the previous day, at Cov’s Herbert Gallery, and noticed the garish exterior of ‘Mustard’ on returning to the car.  That, and the presence of the ‘Photorealism’ show, downstairs at BMAG, makes me reflect that, often, the more you see, the more things connect up.

'New Art West Midlands' continues until 18 May 2014 at: Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery, Chamberlain Square, Birmingham, B3 3DH.  Also at other regional galleries, (dates vary).

[1.]:  Grayson Perry, ‘All In The Best Possible Taste’, Channel 4 Television.  Three Episodes.  First Broadcast: 05 June, 12 June, 19 June 2012.

[2.]:  “The phenomenon that it is precisely communities with adjoining territories, and related to each other in other ways as well, who are engaged in constant feuds and ridiculing each other.”  From:  Sigmund Freud, ‘Freud Library Vol.12: Civilisation Society And Religion, Group Psychology, Civilisation & Its Discontents, And Other Works’, London, Penguin, 1987.

Yours Sincerely

Bob & Roberta Smith, 'We Need A New Counter Culture', Enamel On Board, 2012

My last post was partly an, (admittedly fairly superficial), book review, and partly - a bit of woolly political musing.  Mostly though, it was the externalisation of a debate I often have with myself about the temptations of fatalistic cynicism over the deficiencies of human life, versus the belief that numerous small, hopeful acts, however local or personal, might actually make some difference in the world.  It ended with the hardly original notion, (sometimes cited by artists), that their own creative practice is intrinsically a gesture of engaged positivity in the world, - a kind of political act, if you will.  This post extends that meditation and I can only apologise for its length.

In terms of overt political engagement, I’ve never been sure about the advisability of artists polemically taking on the social order in their work, (even though I’ve edged toward it a little myself, of late).  In the past, I’ve often told myself that an artist’s role should be to observe and comment rather than to actively seek to affect change.  After all, if you were seriously engaged you’d be pursuing a career in politics, volunteering at a food bank or doing pro-bono legal work, not mucking about with paint, wouldn’t you?

Certainly, we could argue all day, (in an anoraky way), over whether ‘The Times They Are A- Changin’ or ‘Blood On The Tracks’ is the more significant Bob Dylan Album, (occupying the two extremes of a spectrum from Protest to the deeply personal).  That’s before we even got into the subject of whether any piece of protest art ever actually changed anything anyway.  Actually, I think the issue is far subtler than that.  Anger over social iniquity, and existential sorrow triggered by the failure of one’s marriage seem equally valid emotions for a well-rounded personality to express in different situations and mass politics is actually just the agglomeration of a million personal stories, I suppose.  Either way, it’s probably the case that adding to different aspects of what nowadays is often called ‘The Conversation’, is all any artist can aspire to, (but valuablel all the same).

Grayson Perry

So maybe my internal debate is more to do with one’s motivation rather than actually what one does.  Perhaps it’s the difference between adopting an ironic, disengaged, or purely venal attitude to one’s activities, or a position of sincerity or authenticity, whatever the content.  This is something I thought about while listening to the artist, Grayson Perry deliver the ‘2013 BBC Reith Lectures’ on Radio 4 recently.

He’s a funny one, Grayson, with his pantomime drag act, (just where the amusingly kitsch flips over into the psychologically worrying); his jokey persona; and a willingness to pop up in the media at any opportunity.  It would be easy to dismiss him as exactly the kind of hyper-ironic, publicity driven careerist we’ve become used to in the post Duchamp/Warhol Art World.  He certainly wasn’t afraid to ride the lucrative YBA bandwagon of the late 90s/early 2000s, and to decorate his trademark, (luxury item), ceramics with exactly the kind of dark psychosexual imagery typical of that generation’s carefully marketed shock tactics.

Grayson Perry, 'Quotes From The Internet', Decorated Ceramic, 2005

Grayson Perry, 'We've Found The Body Of Your Child', Decorated Ceramic, 2000

Yet, whenever I hear Perry speak, I’m surprised by how much genuine substance and apparent sincerity he actually conveys.  He’s an intelligent, engaging and accessible communicator who can handle serious ideas without pomposity or obscurantism; and someone seemingly possessed of a mission to inform, entertain and enlighten as well as to shock.  He has talked with candour about his own difficulties growing up, and the domestic turmoil which may have shaped both his public T.V. alter ego, (Claire), and the disturbing content of some of his work.  He has also played an illuminating role in unpacking the linkages between aesthetic taste and the seemingly unquenchable British class system; and is never slow to prick the pomposity and numerous hypocrisies of the Art World he himself inhabits.

Grayson Gets On His Bike

Perry’s four Reith Lectures had the overall title ‘Playing To The Gallery’ and were his attempt to demystify various aspects of that world for people who may find themselves baffled or alienated by its vagaries, (I’d certainly include myself there, and I produce the stuff).  The subjects covered ranged from the mechanisms, power structures and financial realities applying to contemporary art production and marketing, to the philosophical and possible emotional motivations underpinning it.  They were a typically entertaining listen but I was particularly struck by how easily he was able to oscillate between being cheerfully ironic and rather movingly sincere in tone.

The third lecture, entitled, ‘Nice Rebellion, Welcome In’ [1.], dealt with how the idea of creative rebellion, or the notion of the Avant-Garde, relate to the contemporary Art World.  The idea of successive revolutions in seeing and expressing, each sweeping away the last, clearly no longer applies within modern art, and yet, somehow it still hangs around as a cultural memory.  Perry is hardly the first to point out that even very early on in the progress of Modernism, the Avant-Garde model was being undermined from within by the Duchampian dictum that anything can be art.

Marcel Duchamp (As R Mutt), 'Fountain' (Replica), Readymade Urinal,  1917

It’s an attitude that gained increasing purchase throughout the last century to the point that, for those on the inside, it’s now entirely taken as read.  Arthur Danto has described this 'End State of Art’ as a kind of multiculturalism in which all shades of possible opinion or expression coexist with equal validity [2.].  This notion that anything goes in Art may still be an impediment for a few, but in all honesty, can anyone really maintain a convincing posture of shock at any artistic manoevre, when mass digital media remind us daily that all forms of once transgressive behaviour can now be routine leisure activities?

"And if you think about it, all the things that were once seen as subversive and dangerous like tattoos and piercings and drugs and interracial sex, fetishism, all these things - they sort of crop up on X Factor now on a Saturday night on family viewing.  (LAUGHTER)  The one thing you won't see though: underarm hair.  (LAUGHTER)  The last truly dangerous thing." [3.].

Yves Klein, 'The Monotone Symphony' (Anthropometrie), Performance Event, 1960

In that context, abstract painting, welded metal sculpture, ready-made objects, blank videos or visceral (or scatological) performances can no longer be seen as ground breaking or revolutionary.  The most they can expect to raise is a mild frisson, - the pleasurable thrill of affront.  The obvious danger of all this is that we all become increasingly jaded and yes, cynical, in our approaches to producing and assimilating artwork.  How often do even those of us who really care about Art find themselves briefly glancing around a gallery, mentally categorising the work on display, (“Ah yes, - in the tradition of Alternative Taxidermy”), before sloping off to the bookshop or café?  Can we be surprised if new generations of artists respond accordingly, tailoring their output to engage with whichever taboos are currently most marketable?  Let’s face it; much of the output of the YBA artists, with which Perry was sometimes associated, could be placed in that category, if we’re honest.  Butchered livestock, bodily fluids, Myra Hindley, mutilated children; - Charles Saatchi bought (and sold) it all.  (Please don’t think I don’t get rewards from some of that work, but we do need to be realistic).

"And the creative rebel - they like to think they're sticking it to the man, they're sticking it to the capitalist system, and you know they're really show…like one of them Occupy protesters.  But of course what they don't realise - by being all inventive and creative, they're actually playing into the capitalism's hands because the lifeblood of capitalism is new ideas.  They need new stuff to sell!  You know people are going to get bored of the old stuff."  [4.].

Marcus Harvey, 'Myra', Painted Childrens' Handprints on Canvas, 1995

And so, nothing could encourage the kind of detached, ironic stance so prevalent within Art nowadays, more than the sense that this desensitised, mock rebellion has become just another marketable commodity.  Despite all that, Grayson reveals his own shameful secret, - a desire for sincerity or authenticity as art experiences.

“Me, I have to sort of protect myself against this because when I’m out in the evening and I’m with my mates and I’m being terribly cynical and ironic; but when I want to look at art, I want to have a sincere one to one experience with it because I am a serious artist. I’ve dedicated my life to it. So I go to exhibitions in the morning on my own when I can go, hmn, and you know maybe have a little bit of a moment. (LAUGHTER) I have to protect my tender parts from that wicked irony.” [5.].

Grayson Perry's  Teddy Bear, Alan Measles

Just maybe, sincerity or authenticity might be the only truly radical postures left for an artist to adopt these days and, as Perry points out, may certainly be the qualities they need to make their work.  Of course, even ‘realness’ can become another marketable USP, but it does seem to me that sincerity of motivation, (rather than, necessarily, of content), is the only thing that could even hope to distinguish Art from anything else that might be designated as purely ‘product’, (these days, it’s necessary to include information within the larger category of product, of course).  It’s impossible for artworks not to function partially as saleable merchandise, but essential, I think, for it to retain its other function, as a branch of Philosophy, if it's to endure as a distinct activity.

Ironically, in his final lecture Perry suggested that had he not been an artist, he might have gone into Advertising, [6.].  Perhaps he was being flippant again, but I’m encouraged to see that he stuck to the less cynical path he actually chose.  The most important idea I took from his Reith Lectures was, that there is still, (just about), something that distinguishes Art, as a separate practice, from the other transactions or discourse in which we may participate.   It feels like it's still worth adhering to such a course.

[1.], [3], [4.], [5.]:  Grayson Perry, ‘Nice Rebellion, Welcome In’, BBC Reith Lectures 2013, Lecture 3, The Guildhall, Derry-Londonderry, Broadcast: BBC Radio 4, 29.10.13.

[2.]:  Arthur C. Danto, ‘After The End Of Art: Contemporary Art And The Pale Of History (The A. W. Mellon Lectures In The Fine Arts)’, Princeton N.J., Princeton University Press, 1998.

[6.]:  Grayson Perry, ‘I Found Myself In The Art World’, BBC Reith Lectures 2013, Lecture 4, Central St. Martins College, London, Broadcast: BBC Radio 4, 05.11.13.