Grayson Perry | Smash Hits

foreign [Music] to smash hits my biggest ever exhibition here in Edinburgh and it's looking back over 40 years of my career so this introductory room is kind of maybe giving you a taste of all the different things I get up to prints tapestries cast iron Pottery I make things that are very seductive lovely colors lots of detail the kind of thing that you think oh I'd love one of them in my front room I had this ambition very early on in my career that when you came to my exhibition you would kind of go is this just the work of one person or is it a whole culture I became an artist not because I wanted to become an artist but because I like making art you don't have to read every detail or look at every bit of it but you kind of know there's all those man hours in it and there's a sort of generosity about that I suppose this here's Alan measles he's very important you need to know a bit about him if you're going to see this show he's my childhood teddy bear I use him as God I mean cuddly toys are a good substitute for God because they're an imaginary character onto which you project your positive feelings just like God but for me he was not only God he was a military hero so here over here is a sort of statue of him that's my kind of Monument to the role he played in my childhood he he fought against the invading Germans which were in fact my stepfather this second room it's all about class because you know as a British person you know I I am mired in the uh status system of British Society and also as a person from working class background who has risen through the ranks to become the third reason period uh I am sort of acutely aware of social Mobility because each of these tapestries has a reference to a classical renaissance painting this is basaccio's expulsion from Eden but in my thing Tim the central figure of the story he is leaving his working class Roots behind he's gone to University he started computer science he's being welcomed into the suddenly Uplands of the middle classes where they have olive oil and they buy wine and they don't drink it on the same day now all my works you know I usually start when I'm making something by looking around a museum or flicking through Pinterest or art books and seeing something I like and think I'll make my version of that this is a good example this was based on a piece of Satsuma where some 19th century Japanese ceramics but I've done my own version of it that it's got instead of lily pads around the top it has a ring of transvestites and instead of carp swimming below the surface of the lily pads it has jet planes swimming in squadrons around it this is my biggest ever work is the world from Stow tapestry it's three meters by 15 meters it's like a fresco cycle almost it's the story of somebody from birth to death and it's completely covered with all the different brands because brands are like gods of the Modern Age aren't they they're imaginary entities myths that we all buy into in the same way as people bought into gods in the past [Music] mission for the art collector because you know you've got to make a living and so I've made a lot of work that's sort of about the idea of collecting and this is a good example of it this is a piece called uh large expensive abstract painting because smart collectors like large expensive abject paintings and so I've made one about the super rich top recommendation for any artist put the names of Rich art collectors onto pots they're quite likely to buy it they like to be part of the game they like to be acknowledged as part of the art system God bless the super rich motorbikes I've always loved motorbikes my father had a motorbike and when he left he left it leaning against the wall of the house I think for me it sort of embodied sort of something about my father motorcycle so I've always loved motorcycles but this is one dedicated to my teddy bear elements who's my kind of surrogate father and I took him as a kind of mobile Shrine so people could worship him this isn't the real Alamedas by the way it's a stunt Ellen measles one of our most primary forces in culture is narrative we love a story dreams are our brains attempt to try and make a narrative out of the emotions that are floating around our body that don't have a place these tapestries were part of the work that I made for a house that you can stay in in Essex I wanted a narrative so I invented a woman called Julie cope and I wrote a long poem about her life and she was like a kind of woman that also went on a kind of class mobile Journey but really I was probably rewriting my mother's life because that's what artists do they let things leak out of their unconscious and communicate them to you through your unconscious it's a bit grittier in here because we're dealing with masculinity national identity this is one of my favorite pieces I've got in the show this is a big tapestry talking about unconscious I was drawing it and then suddenly realized I was transcribing Paul Nash's Battle of Britain and also my brother my younger brother is 11 years younger than me when he saw it he said you've put me in the tapestry because I I didn't know it but I was drawing him he rides a BMX steel when he's in his 50s and that's what he looks like from behind that's strange isn't it I suppose there's two forces operating in me you know in many ways one is what I would call The Hobbit which is kind of someone who likes detail and craftsmanship and tradition and then there's another part of me that is I would call the punk that is more humorous has more urban energy is more politicized so sometimes one takes over from the other I would say this is quite a punk part in a way it's a beautiful shape and it's lovely thing but it's also lots of humor in it and it's teasing the art world the art World likes to think it does good things and everybody in the art world is somehow Progressive and good but then at the same time they're quite happy to you know make a lot of money as well so I think that's fine the ideas in the work are around many very charged subjects you know class gender poverty conflict all these things are in there all the kind of big issues are hovering in the background but I don't necessarily want to over egg them because I think that if you want to be a political campaigner then go out there and be a political campaigner because most the people that come to an art gallery and look at your work are going to agree with you anyway so I always have compassion for the people who come to the art gallery they want entertainment they want pleasure they want sensual Delight they want to think a bit but on the whole they want to go wow look at that big colorful thing

Channel: nationalgalleries

Views: 42,583

Keywords: Grayson Perry, Royal Scottish Academy, National Galleries Scotland, Pottery, Tapestry, Sculpture, Art, Turner Prize, Sir Grayson Perry, Edinburgh Art, Smash Hits, grayson perry documentary, grayson perry ceramics, grayson perry art, masculinity, pottery, grayson, grayson perry interview, grayson perry rites of passage, art, grayson perry pottery, modern art, grayson perry social classes, turner prize, rites of passage, ceramic art, middle class, vanity of small differences, society

Id: kC3kOvCEpBQ

Length: 7min 21sec (441 seconds)

Published: Wed Aug 09 2023