Grayson Perry. Flying penises, rude vases and teddy bears

Grayson Perry, Motorbike

Grayson Perry (together with the architect firm FAT), A House for Essex. Photo: Jack Hobhouse. Via we heart

Earlier this month, during the Week of New Maastricht, i visited the exhibition Grayson Perry. Hold Your Beliefs Lightly at the Bonnefantenmuseum. I liked it very VERY much. Not just for the works on show but also for the atmosphere.

There were ladies of a certain age taking photos of a ceramic penis with their mobile phone. There were families discussing life inside a kind of Taj Mahal built for a mythical woman called Julie Cope. There were academic types trying their best to intellectualize the omnipresence of a teddy bear called Alan Measles in Perry’s work. And then there were people who resented being towed through rooms of pots, flamboyant tapestries, extravagant frocks, intricate maps, and un-PC sculptures created by ‘an Essex transvestite potter’ (that’s actually the way the artist ironically defines himself.)

Grayson Perry, Tomb Guardian, 2011

Perry is a cross dresser, a Turner Prize winner, a “conceptual artist who works as a craftsman” but he is also an artist who deserves so much more than easy generalization.

He can be a bit rude but he’s never vulgar. He observes and satirizes British society, its classes, tastes and rituals but he does so with kindness. His vases look traditional but as you go nearer, you realize that they bear crude images and cheap tabloid headlines. He does tapestries and pots, has a flamboyant alter-ego called Claire but he’s never twee, i doubt any woman would object to his own take on feminity. He’s just in a category of his own. Not least for his very inclusive way of communicating contemporary art.

There is so much more to say about Perry and about each of his small and major artworks but i’m sure you all know his work very well already. I’m just going to leave you with some images of the works exhibited in Maastricht and soon in Aarhus where the exhibition is traveling:

The High Priestess Cape (detail), 2007