Tastefully done?
Installation view of Grayson Perry’s Expulsion from Number 8 Eden Close, Victoria Miro, 2012 (c) the artist
I have never previously liked what I have seen as the garish and heavy tapestries which are a new material avenue for contemporary ceramic artist Grayson Perry. But, over the last few weeks, Channel 4 has featured a series of three programmes by Perry, that have made me reconsider. These have been called In the best possible taste and have featured Perry's search for the 'taste tribes' of Britain, with each programme dedicated to the taste of a different 'class' by focusing on a specific British town or region. Working class taste was sought in Sunderland, middle class in Tunbridge Wells, and upper class in the Cotswalds. Out of these Perry has created a series of six tapestries - two for each class - which are on display as The Vanity of Small Differences at the Victoria Miro Gallery in London.
These caught my attention because the tapestries are conceived as a 'modern moral series' evoking William Hogarth's A Rake's Progress, which my PhD research is partly about. Perry's series features Tim Rakewell, rather than Hogarth's Tom Rakewell, who experiences a similar moral adventure negotiating the perils of wealth and crossing class and social boundaries. I have discussed the interesting relationships between Perry's and Hogarth's series, and particularly those of Hogarth's final plate that features my cherished 'longitude lunatic,' over on the Board of Longitude blog, which you can read here.
For Spoons on Trays, I have some more general thoughts about how far Perry's series works. He makes some insightful and thought-provoking comments about the nature of taste and class divisions in Britain, concluding in the final programme that 'taste' is merely what is accepted within one's community. He comments on working-class personal display through tattoos, cars or theatrical make-up; middle-class anxiety about the ethical, financial and individual statements that one's 'taste' makes; and the depth of historical legacies which burden upper-class life and lifestyle. I do feel, however, that he awkwardly conflates 'class' and socio-economic group in the way in which he frames his programmes, making his story more sensational but less coherent.
I also wonder at the surprisingly unreflexive quality of elements of the series. Perry never addresses the question of how his discoveries are altered simply by the question of who is prepared to talk to him and appear in his programme. Let alone who might react against him as both a controversial modern artist and a transvestite - in each programme he attempts to dress appropriately for a woman of that class. As an artist, he likewise barely discusses the visual and intellectual process of turning his small ink drawings into the monumental tapestries that are on display at Victoria Miro (he does, fascinatingly, show the technical creation of the pieces at the factory), nor the qualities which this textured material brings to the resultant images.
It is interesting, finally, to consider the relationship between the works and the television series. I visited the gallery after having watched the first two programmes - working and middle class taste - so felt I could engage much more thoroughly with the detail of the first four tapestries, and Perry's message in these. By contrast, I could, or did, approach the final two more with a personal and art historian's eye, looking for iconographical relationships, and meanings extrapolated from the first four panels. Since watching the final programme I have, again, thought about these differently. I applaud the collaboration of artist, gallery and TV team evident in the pieces and the programmes, but wonder how well the tapestries now work without the programmes. Should Perry's hunt amongst the 'taste tribes' not be broadcast in the gallery alongside the tapestries?