Standing in the entrance of Grayson Perry鈥檚 exhibition at the Victoria Miro gallery I find myself caught between two images. On the left, a child is cradled in the arms of a young mother. She sits in a pub-carpeted, patterned wallpapered, trinket adorned room, the time-honoured depiction of working class living (The Adoration of the Cage Fighters, 2012). Two bald, tattooed men worship at the ginger-haired baby鈥檚 feet. They present gifts of a miner鈥檚 lamp and Sunderland football shirt. In the image to the right a man lies dead, cradled in the arms of a paramedic on the pavement of a London street (#Lamentation, 2012). A smashed sports car provides evidence of the accident. His curly ginger hair echoes the infant鈥檚.
The images are woven; the walls of the exhibition hung with six, two by four metre tapestries. They bear an immediate correlation of baby pinks and blues, chalky purples and yellows, and dusky oranges. Not only is this clearly a singular work presented in six parts, but the colours fill the room with Grayson Perry鈥檚 unmistakable aesthetic stamp. The tapestries fulfil their traditional role of historical document and storyteller. Their episodic narrative is loosely based on William Hogarth鈥檚 A Rake鈥檚 Progress (1732-33), eight paintings that tell the story of a man, Tom Rakewell, who finds his demise through the accumulation and subsequent consumption of wealth. Following on from Hogarth鈥檚 depiction of current class culture in the original paintings, Perry renames the character Tim, and uses the relationship between taste and class as it exists in contemporary culture to generate imagery and update the tale.
Perry鈥檚 compositions borrow notably from Christian Renaissance painting, and as such each tapestry holds an unspoken religious overtone. The cage fighters adorning the baby with gifts are Mantegna鈥檚 shepherds before Christ (The Adoration of the Shepherds, 1450) and when Tim鈥檚 family shuns him, he and his girlfriend walk away as Adam and Eve in Masaccio鈥檚 Expulsion from the Garden of Eden (1424-28). The archetypal Biblical scenes are so present in compositional history that the connection is not laboured. The presence of religion in the images allows one of Perry鈥檚 key themes to surface. In his second tapestry, The Agony in the Car Park (2012), Perry鈥檚 narrative voice openly states, 鈥淪hip building bound the town together like a religion鈥. The classes depicted in Tim鈥檚 narrative are tribal; Systems of belief that imply more than simply social standing. Other than wealth and social division, for Perry they contain a system of taste that comes to pervade many aspects of life, from choice of lifestyle, clothes and furnishing, to preference of celebrity chef.
Whilst Hogarth鈥檚 character inherits his money, Perry鈥檚 protagonist generates his own fortune. An intelligent lower class boy who, rejected by his mother, finds himself accepted in his girlfriend鈥檚 middle class family. His own earnings then catapult him to bourgeois wealth. The penultimate tapestry, The Upper Class at Bay (2012), shows Mr and Mrs Rakewell walking in the land around their austere countryside mansion (referencing Mr and Mrs Andrews, Thomas Gainsborough, 1748-9). A group of protestors is encamped upon their vast lawn. Their placards declare 鈥淭ax is good鈥 鈥淧ay up Tim鈥. In the foreground of the image the most extravagant image that the tapestries afford, an absurd tartan stag staggers across the scene, chased by slavering, scarlet hell-hounds. Perry鈥檚 take on class is anything but impartial.
At the far end of the space, separate from the tapestries, sit three of Perry鈥檚 signature pots, placed alongside two drawings. The pots, like the tapestries, present a fragmentary view of modern taste. However, in this case Perry鈥檚 diverse set of references is tied down by theme rather than narrative. Voting Patterns (2012) surveys the UK’s popular political landscape, stopping by Thatcher鈥檚 link to the 鈥淏aby Boomers鈥 and ending up at a direct transfer of the now ironic sign 鈥淟iberal Democrats Winning Here鈥. The Existential Void (2012) takes a jab at the intellectual classicism of the art world, declaring itself a 鈥淢ETA pot鈥 and pointing out the art-culture faux pas 鈥淧icasso napkin syndrome.鈥
The drawings, depicting more pots, continue this line of thought. Entitled Tate Pot and RA Pot (2012) they align the art institutions with their perceived equivalent level of branded goods. Whilst Tate finds itself compared to the distinctly middle-class lifestyle of Apple, Sainsburys, Jamie Oliver, and John Lewis, the RA is represented by a more gentrified list, amongst them: Boden, AGA, Liberty, Radio four, and of course, Waitrose. The drawings are an effective visual one-liner, but also serve to bring the art world into the class discussion, a self-acknowledgement necessary to prevent the exhibition tipping too far into the self-righteous. Returning to Perry鈥檚 final tapestry I notice a final twist. In the background of the iconic image (borrowed from Weyden鈥檚 depiction of the death of Christ, Lamentation, 1441) is a BP petrol station and to its left a McDonalds. These at first incongruous buildings, present a final reference to the art gallery. I walked along City road, past the scene of the accident, on my way to the exhibition.
Grayson Perry: The Vanity of Small Differences, 07/06/2012 until 11/08/2012, Victoria Miro Gallery, 16 Wharf Road, London, N1 7RW.
Credits:
Installation View, Grayson Perry The Vanity of Small Differences, Victoria Miro Gallery, 7 June 鈥 11 August 2012
Text: Travis Riley
