And so to Bristol City Museum to see (another) Grayson Perry exhibition, The Vanity of Small Differences.
The set of six tapestries explores one of his favourite topics, class, through the story of working class lad, Tim Rakewell, who leaves his working class Sunderland home, goes to university, marries a middle class girl whose father mocks his accent, makes shedloads of money developing apps, buys a stately home, and dies crashing his Ferrari while showing off to his new trophy wife. The exhibition is augmented by the original 'Rake's Progress' print series by William Hogarth and David Hockney, as well as some 18th century ceramics from the museum's collection, for added context.
The Adoration of the Cage-Fighters
The Agony in the Car Park
The Expulsion from Number 8 Eden Close
The Annunciation of the Virgin Deal
The Upper Class at Bay (or an endangered species)
#Lamentation
Like many people, class makes me uncomfortable. The daughter of working class Tories, I was sent to a direct grant girls' school, which my parents felt would give me a 'good' education. I encountered a degree of prejudice there, from some members of staff and the parents of pupils (although not so much from the pupils themselves). I never fitted in, but then I found I didn't fit in at home any more either. I emerged from my schooling a socialist, much to the dismay of my parents.
Here's one of those mothers.
And I know this well-appointed room too because I had breakfast in it one sunny morning 40-odd years ago. The father of the family asked me if I wanted margarine or butter on my toast, and I didn't know what the right answer was. We had margarine at home, though, so I guessed butter would probably be the more acceptable response. Wrong!
'Oh well, if you want to die of coronary arterial disease, that's your look-out,' he said, shoving the butter dish in my direction.
I looked up 'coronary arterial disease' later.
So I don't like to think of book-lined rooms as being a sign of membership of the middle classes.
Or these lovely Penguin mugs. (We've got two.)
Or William Morris - for god's sake, he was a founding father of socialism.
Or even protest itself.
Does it matter? Is this all vanity, as the name of the exhibition suggests?
Sometimes art imitates life. During a pause in the rolling film feature before it restarted, a woman came through the open door and rushed towards me.
'It's the poet, Debbie Harvey! I've heard so much about you, I've always wanted to meet you!'
I clocked the Debbie - not my writing name. But I'd never seen her before in my life. Or had I? I'm rubbish at faces, and even worse at faces out of context.
Then relief. My oldest friend was right behind her.
We hugged and kissed and laughed at our chance meeting. The opening titles started to play. Instantly a woman behind us said, very loudly, 'Would you please go outside if you want to talk. Some of us came in to watch.'
And there we were, right back in school in our handknitted cardigans, not knowing what lasagne or salami was and bemused by peers whose homes were so warm they could wear t-shirts in January. I don't think you ever really leave where you start out.
One of my favourite pieces of art ever is God Please Keep My Children Safe by Grayson Perry, which I saw at the Love exhibition at Bristol City Museum back in 2008. More than any other artwork I've encountered, it epitomises for me that obsessional and terrific love with which your life is weighted the instant you feel your baby shift inside you. (I don't mean terrific in the sense of 'mahvellous, dahling'; I mean 'Causing You Terror'. Because in that instant you know that your life is utterly bound up, one way or another, with this new one for the rest of its duration.)
Suffice to say, I've been really looking forward to seeing the most recent exhibition of Grayson Perry's work in Bristol - The Most Popular Art Exhibition Ever! - at the Arnolfini. If I were still writing my arts column for the local paper, I'd have been down there to see it a lot earlier in its run, but I'm not and I'm glad, too, since the note to one of the exhibits - Puff Piece - says that GP can't bear to read any of the reviews of his shows these days, as the good ones affect him just as much as the negative ones. (Not that he would have come across said local paper, of course, but even so.)
Anyway, I'm just going to post photos to remind me of my favourite bits, and of the fun I had watching other visitors to the exhibition react to the pieces on display.
Battle of Britain
Battle of Britain (detail)
Kenilworth AM1
Matching Pair
the Remain pot
the Leave pot
Marriage Shrine
(The outside trying to break in. This is through the gallery window, not an exhibit.)
Alan Measles and Claire Visit the Rust Belt
Jeremy Corbyn holding Claire's hand while Theresa May and Boris Johnson look on
Trump kissing Alan's hand as Melania Trump and Nigel Farage look on
The Digmoor Tapestry
(More obtrusive outdoor scenery through the windows)
Red Carpet
Our Mother
Puff Piece (detail)
Luxury Brands for Social Justice
'rich people deserve equal rights too!' ... 'war and poverty are bad, I learnt that at university' ... 'super expensive knick-knacks against facism' ... 'all my ideas are recycled' ... 'liberal values sold here' ... 'this art makes me a better person' ... 'I've read all the academic research about empathy' ... 'remind me what it it we're protesting about' ... 'let them eat conceptual art' ... 'I'm off to buy a very serious piece of political art' ... 'poor places are so much more authentic'
Animal Spirit and Object in Foreground
Death of a Working Hero (detail)
Shadow Boxing (detail)
Reclining Artist
Long Pig
What I like best about GP's work is its layered quality, which is most evident in the pottery and tapestries. There is always so much more going on beneath the surface, and the longer you look, the deeper you see. It's something I always try to do in my poems, and I left the exhibition more determined than ever to achieve that.
Grump of the Day was that the perspex boxes protecting the pottery and sculptures, whilst necessary, were horribly smeary and in need of a good clean.
Final Joy of the Day was the discovery that having waited years for one to come along, a second Grayson Perry exhibition, featuring six tapestries inspired by Hogarth's The Rake's Progress, will open at Bristol City Museum on 31st March 2018.
