Grayson Perry: The Vanity of Small Differences: The Vanity of Small Differences (reprinted)

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In the series Perry goes on 'a safari amongst the taste tribes of Britain', to gather inspiration for his artwork, literally weaving the characters he meets into a narrative, with an attention to the minutiae of contemporary taste every bit as acute as that in Hogarth's 18th century paintings. The Brexit vases are the stars of the artist’s playful new Serpentine show, one of the most accessible exhibitions ever."

The Arts Council Collection is responsible for the UK tour of the tapestries and the British Council looks after Perry is certainly aware of his own position in relation to his work and openly admits that some aspects of the scenes in the pieces are autobiographical – such as the abandoned little boy hiding behind the banister in the left-hand corner of the first tapestry. Beyond the personal, Perry also manages to tap into our contemporary social consciousness, as is evident in the second tapestry where writing in the waves spell out socio-political clichés about the working class. Through six large-scale tapestries, Perry exploreshis fascination with taste and class. The tapestriesweave autobiographical references with characters,places and objects that Perry encountered on histravels through regions of England for the Channel4, BAFTA-winning documentary series ‘All in theBest Possible Taste with Grayson Perry’ (2012).Taking inspiration from many art-historicalreferences, in particular Hogarth’s A Rake’sProgress, this exhibition tells the story of the riseand demise of Tim Rakewell, aiming to act as arecord of a precise moment in history. Perry has instinct. He understands that working-class taste is about display and comfort and bling and play. Of course it is ridiculous, some of it. It is nasty and ostentatious at its worst, and as sentimental as we see in his depiction of it ( The Agony in the Car Park). But there is a generosity there – an ability to live in the moment. Getting ready to go out is as much fun as going out; in Sunderland, Perry played with the current aesthetic of the hyper-feminine ( The Adoration of the Cage Fighters).The Vanity of Small Differences tells the story of the rise and demise of Tim Rakewell and is composed of characters, incidents and objects Perry encountered on journeys through Sunderland, Tunbridge Wells and The Cotswolds. Hogarth has long been an influence on Perry's works, his Englishness, his robust humour and his depiction of, in his own words, 'modern moral subjects'. The secondary influence comes from Perry's favourite form of art, early Renaissance painting. The tapestries look at English class through the story of the life of Tim Rakewell, and his progress through modern British society from humble birth to famous death. They are composed of characters, places and objects that Perry encountered on his travels through Sunderland, Tunbridge Wells and the Cotswolds. As well as drawing on these experiences, Perry also took inspiration from art-historical imagery: often early Renaissance religious works but also, and most importantly, William Hogarth’s series of paintings A Rake’s Progress (1733), which tells the story of the rise and fall of a young man who loses his inherited fortune through a series of bad decisions. The Annunciation of the Virgin Deal”, 2012. Wool, cotton, acrylic, polyester and silk tapestry, 200 X 400 cm. British Council Collection. The artworks grew out of the television series All in the Best Possible Taste with Grayson Perry (Channel 4, 2012). Perry, through encounters with various English people belonging to different milieus, observes very well the subtle differences in taste associated with class.

We refuse a verbal discourse on class, except in our Marxist enclaves, but instead visually signal class difference, indeed class gradations, to each other all the time. Perry's TV series last year All in the Best Possible Taste with Grayson Perry was a blast of class consciousness, just when we are in deep denial about this reality. Of all the things I expected to come out of the series, the last would have been tapestries. Somehow this is perfect, though. Something old, something new; digitally produced by looms, the tapestries together entitled The Vanity of Small Differences are arty and crafty. They use humour to depict loss and joy and a pervading sense of anxiety. Pushing Paper: Contemporary Drawing from 1970 to Now featuring Grayson Perry and Stephen Willats at the British MuseumArts Council Collection, Southbank Centre London and British Council. Gift of the artist and Victoria Miro Gallery with the support of Channel 4 Television, the Art Fund and Sfumato Foundation with additional support from AlixPartners. The scene is Tim’s great-grandmother’s front room. The infant Tim reaches for his mother’s smartphone – his rival for her attention. She is dressed up, ready for a night out with her four friends, who have perhaps already ‘been on the pre-lash’. Two ‘Mixed Martial Arts’ enthusiasts present icons of tribal identity to the infant: a Sunderland A.F.C. football shirt and a miner’s lamp. In the manner of early Christian painting, Tim appears a second time in the work: on the stairs, as a four-year-old, facing another evening alone in front of a screen. Although this series of images developed very organically, with little consistent method, the religious reference was here from the start: I hear the echo of paintings such as Andrea Mantegna’s The Adoration of the Shepherds (c.1450). The reason this becomes problematic for the middle classes is because, as Perry points out, they are acutely self-conscious. "No better than they ought to be," as we used to say, though they do try. For class is embedded in culture and culture is ever-evolving – it contains what Raymond Williams identified as dominant (existing), residual and emergent elements. All of these are woven into Perry's tapestries: what was there; what should be there; what will be there. The cultural struggle is always over meaning. The middle class remains both unknown to itself and fearful that what is valuable may disappear. This sense of loss is mysterious but hangs over Perry's work. With an inventive and elegant design from Pony Ltd, this fascinating publicationincludes an extensive array of full-colour reproductions of Perry’s tapestries,complete with photos of the artist’s sketches and preparatory material for thetapestries themselves. Inspired by the 18th century painter William Hogarth’s moral tale, A Rake’s Progress, Grayson Perry’s tapestries follow the life of a fictional character called Tim Rakewell, as he develops from infancy through his teenage and middle years, to his untimely death in a car accident.

The tapestries, recently acquired by the Crafts Council, begin their two-year national tour at Banbury Museum (11 March - 13 May 2017). Some of Claire’s best-known outfits are featured in this display (4 November 2017 – 4 February 2018), including the Bo Peep dress worn when Perry was awarded the Turner Prize in 2003. On the whole, then, as we have seen, the echoes of Old Masters are, in Perry’s hands, obscure, perhaps ironic, perhaps playful, and bearing little obvious reference to the actual meaning of the Old Masters’ work, unless the whole story of Jesus’ life is meant to stand in judgment over that of the unfortunate Rakewell and his family. The exhibition at the Victoria Museum, run by Bath & North East Somerset Council, is now over. However further exhibitions of the tapestries are planned in Coventry, Worcester and Canterbury this year. I highly recommend seeking them out.Masaccio’s Expulsion from Eden (Brancacci Chapel) is a parallel to Tim’s rejection by his family (3) overseen by Jamie Oliver, ‘the god of social mobility’, and raises the perhaps unforeseen question, ‘Is moving socially upwards a kind of fall – something from which we need saving.’ Three different paintings of the Annunciation provide elements of ‘The Annunciation of the Virgin Deal’: Crivelli (National Gallery) for the vegetables (though in his work they are symbolic) Campin (The Cloisters N.Y.) for the jug of lillies (again symbolic in Renaissance art) and Grunewald’s altarpiece (Colmar) for the face of Tim’s colleague (though she is also given angelic wings whereas in Grunewald her face is slightly similar to that of Mary). There are no religious connotations to The Upper Class at Bay (though see The Stag at Bay by Landseer and Gainsborough’s Mr and Mrs Andrews, and the reference described above to St Hubert).