Democracy has bad taste
This is the title of the first of this year’s BBC Reith Lectures being given by the artist Grayson Perry under the overall title ‘Playing to the Gallery.’ Readers of this blog will know that I am quite a fan of Perry’s recent work based on Hogarth’s A Rake's Progress, as well as the show that he curated at the British Museum, The Tomb of the Unknown Craftsman, so I was particularly excited to be offered a ticket to watch Perry’s first lecture being filmed.
Perry informed Sue Lawley in the opening remarks on the series that he was aiming to ‘answer some of the big questions that ordinary people might have about art.’ In this first lecture he proceeded to discuss some of the workings of the art world, explaining how ‘good’ art gets established by a combination of curators, the art market, and public opinion. He spoke well and amusingly, particularly about the ridiculous nature of ‘art speak,’ of which I, also, feel the Royal Academy is particularly guilty. Yet, I felt he also ‘played to the gallery’ in a lot of unhelpful ways, making cheap shots at the art world about decisions that have been made, artists that have been lauded and then rapidly become unpopular. The process of curating contemporary art needs demystifying not belittling, which is what I felt Perry did.
I came away irritated rather than encouraged. It was revealing, I thought, that despite his overall point being that anyone should be able to go into a gallery or museum and enjoy themselves without feeling intimidated or stupid—a point with which I couldn’t agree more—during the question session members of the audience still felt compelled to introduce themselves as ‘just a member of the public.’ For a discussion, likewise, about ‘bad and ‘good’ taste,’ Perry never touched on the fascinating and nuanced ideas of what ‘taste’ means that he explored in his Channel 4 series, In The Best Possible Taste.
His discussion came back to me, with some irony, the following day, when the Today programme on Radio 4 interviewed Jack Vettriano, who has just opened a Retrospective at Kelvingrove Art Gallery in Glasgow. Vettriano is an artist who I kept thinking would come up in Perry’s talk, vilified by the art world but beloved of the public, a constant presence on greetings cards and posters. I wonder how the fact that the curators at Kelvingrove have invited Vettriano to hold a retrospective plays into Perry’s discussion? Does this change what ‘taste’ Vettriano represents? And whose ‘taste’ is it anyway?