I was fortunate enough to see Grayson Perry's latest exhibition - The Vanity of Small Differences - at the Sunderland Museum and Winter Gardens. If you didn't see the three channel 4 Series In the Best Possible Taste -then I urge you to do so! Only having followed the Journey of Perry's research do you truly appreciate the final six tapestries that make up the Exhibition.
During the series, Grayson Perry goes on a safari amongst the taste tribes of Britain, to gather inspiration for his artworks, literally weaving the characters he meets into a narrative partly inspired by Hogarth's A Rake's Progress.
In Episode one of the series, Perry begins his investigation in Sunderland, a city with strong working class traditions. In Episode two he embeds himself with the british middle classes in and around Tunbridge Wells and lastly, the series ends with Perry's final journey in the exploration of British 'taste' by living amongst the upper classes of the Cotswolds in Gloucestershire.
You can watch this Series by clicking on the Link Below.
Grayson Perry comments -
"The tapestries tell the story of class mobility, for I think nothing has as strong an influence on our aesthetic taste as the social class in which we grow up. I am interested in the politics of consumerism and the history of popular design but for this project I focus on the emotional investment we make in the things we choose to live with, wear, eat, read or drive. Class and taste run deep in our character - we care. This emotional charge is what draws me to a subject".
"The tapestries tell the story of class mobility, for I think nothing has as strong an influence on our aesthetic taste as the social class in which we grow up. I am interested in the politics of consumerism and the history of popular design but for this project I focus on the emotional investment we make in the things we choose to live with, wear, eat, read or drive. Class and taste run deep in our character - we care. This emotional charge is what draws me to a subject".
An interesting aspect of the exhibition for me was watching how people viewed the tapestries within the space. As the Tapestries told a story, people circulated the space in a clock wise motion, following the transition of time from one class to the next. In effect it was like reading a giant six page picture book, with each chapter illustrated intricately on one page accompanied by small snippets of text.
Each tapestry was so rich with content, that I found my self dissecting them into smaller, more digestible sections ... once dissected, they still remain packed with significant references to the wider picture.
It was great to view this exhibition in Sunderland, as it felt like the project had come full circle from the first episode in the TV series where Perry started his 'taste tribe' research.
I have just been made aware of the App for i-phones and i-pads, which gives an insightful audio tour of the tapestries. What a fantastic tool! For more information, see the link below:
No comments:
Post a Comment