ARTIST’S NEW WORK
In a forthcoming exhibition artist Grayson Perry presents new work including pots, sculpture, large-scale prints, a tapestry and a carpet
In an exhibition of new work, Grayson Perry: Super Rich Interior Decoration the artist casts an anthropological eye on the heady collision of art, money, power and desire. The assertion of identity through cultural or consumer choices and what these reveal about us, is one theme of a show that broaches the concepts of meaning and significance and what can be authentically experienced or simply acquired.
New pots include Shopping for Meaning, adorned with images of the artist – in wig, headscarf and various outfits – standing in front of Mayfair’s designer stores, their logos visible behind him, and Searching for Authenticity, which collects together symbols of rebellion and rites of passage – the leather jacket, the beard, the CND banner – as if they were a catalogue of lifestyle choices.
Very Expensive Abstract Painting is a tapestry that, bearing some of the hallmarks of 20th century abstraction, is also a map of London – traversed by the familiar serpentine form of the Thames and containing words that appear to chime with their corresponding locations – the area to the south of the city simply reads: ‘organic’.
Opposing political affiliations are set on a collision course in two outsized woodblock prints – Selfie with Political Causes, 2018, which shows the artist riding a motorbike surrounded by fluttering right-on slogans and a new companion piece, Sponsored by You, which depicts Perry and Alan Measles taking a spin in a sports car powered by an engine labelled ‘pure greed’ through a landscape festooned with the names of global tax havens.
For the first time, this exhibition sees Perry working with material from photographers Richard Young and Martin Parr and Eleni Parousi. Celebrity photographer Young, whose work since the 1970s has chronicled the party-going glitterati, has provided the images for one pot.
Given access to Parr’s archive, Perry has selected images of the well-heeled at leisure for Money on Holiday, a table lamp which also features the names of tax havens such as Panama, Cayman Islands and the Isle of Man.
Parousi’s photographs of Perry, in situ in Bond Street and Mount Street, feature on Shopping for Meaning.
During the making of the work Perry had in mind Nam June Paik’s famous quote: “The artist should always bite the hand that feeds him – but not too hard.”
While some of the works appear to goad the wealthiest in society, the very people who might collect contemporary art, richness here might refer to a profusion of decoration and an abundance of reference as much as affluence.
Perry has also produced a handbag in collaboration with Graeme Ellisdon, of Osprey London, which will be on view as part of the exhibition.
Grayson Perry: Super Rich Interior Decoration
25th September – 2nd November 2019
Victoria Miro Mayfair
14 St George Street, London W1S 1FE
