★★★★☆
Two large pots stand at the heart of The Most Popular Art Exhibition Ever! Visitors to the latest show at the Serpentine Gallery in London will no doubt head straight for them because these are not just any pots, they are television personalities. They took the starring role in a recent Channel 4 programme. And their creator, Grayson Perry — the cross-dressing potter and cultural commentator, with a Turner prize, a host of solo exhibitions, a bestselling autobiography and two Baftas under his belt — understands the importance of wide recognition only too well. If you want to stand out as a star of our era, it’s a sine qua non to turn up on TV.
However, to win the great talent contest of public attention in what has become a frenetically overcrowded field, a pair of clay vases will have to do more than just put in a small-screen appearance — not least when, at first glance, the pieces aren’t particularly eye-catching. Standing, at a guess, about 3ft high, they are shaped much like ordinary flower vases, their shiny glazed surfaces collaged with a dense patchwork of the little hand-drawn pictures that will feel familiar to any who know Perry’s work.
“The Leave pot is collaged with images of Farage and his fanatics
It’s the backstory of these pieces that attracts the attention. The playfully hubristic title of this show was Perry’s starting point. When he came up with it, he says, he liked it “because it chimed with one of my ongoing ambitions — to widen the audience for art without dumbing it down. Mainly I liked it because it made me giggle, but popularity is a serious business. Ask any politician.”
He sets out to examine the idea of popularity more profoundly; to see how it plays out in the broader domains of society, politics or culture. And so taking Brexit — an issue about which the vast majority of us have strong opinions — as his subject, he conducted his own artistic referendum and presents its results in the form of these twinned pots.
Vox-popping people on both sides of the debate, he asked them, through social media, to upload (under two hashtags: #remainpot and #leavepot) their selfies; to send images that they thought captured their identities; and to choose pictures of heroes, hobbies or household brands that might broadly convey their sense of Britishness. Then, trawling through their submissions, he selected those he found most striking or significant. These were replicated on the decorative surface of each vase: one for the Brexiteers, the other for the Remainers.
Advertisement
The former is collaged with images of Farage and his fanatics. Pictures of the Queen, Winston Churchill or Francis Drake can be picked out. A fat man sports a bright Union Jack suit. A pregnant woman has “Brexit Baby” scrawled in big letters across her bump. The latter brings us Mahatma Gandhi, Barack Obama, William Shakespeare and the murdered MP Jo Cox, a hoodie with a guitar, and a sign saying: “Birds nesting please do not use this box.” With a bit of a careful looking you can quickly guess which is which, although the disparity in size — the Brexit pot is, symbolically, fractionally larger (“about 4 per cent larger,” Perry quips) — is not noticeable.
What is most striking is not how different they are, but how very similar they look. Brexit has been commonly labelled “a Marmite issue” — quintessentially divisive. And yet, when asked to contribute images of what they most liked about our nation, both sides nominated Marmite. Both sides chose the BBC, the NHS, a teapot. Offered a choice of six principal colours for the background, they both picked blue. And shown a selection of decorative stamps, both frequently opted for the same designs. A pair of artworks that tackle just about the most discordant issue of our day have ended up looking almost the same.
Matching Pair is the title that Perry chose for his finished piece. When we voted on this highly emotional issue we seem to have drawn from the same deck of feelings. The message is clear: what we have in common is much greater than that which drives us apart.
These Brexit pots along with two new tapestry pieces — a panoramic landscape and a map of Britain in which the names of roads and towns are replaced by taglines: “celebrity endorsement”, “the liberal elite”, “the Westminster bubble”, “fly tipping”, “human trafficking” etc — form the heart of this show. The adjoining galleries glance at other themes. The relationship between artist, gallery, critic and audience is explored in pieces such as Visitor Figures, a pot plastered with references to the most visited art shows of the past year, or Long Pig, a ceramic piggy bank that encourages visitors to donate to the gallery by putting their coins in the slot that they think suits them best: black or white, urban or rural, old or young. Another group of works, from his 2016 All Man series, takes a wry look at traditional notions of masculinity. Love is also a theme — most touchingly in the little wayside shrine that Perry erects: a folklorish monument to his feelings for his wife.
Friction between factions, it emerges, is also a driving force in Perry’s work. It pushes us out of our comfort zone and into the no man’s land where Perry most likes to play. Look at his poster-size woodcut self-portrait, for instance. The artist presents himself in the traditional pose of reclined nude. But, while his penis is prominent, his head is that of his female alter ego, Claire, and he wishfully endows himself with a pert pair of breasts. Look at the macho motorbike customised in bubblegum pink, or take a trip to the loo — male and female are indicated with portraits of Perry, one in his everyday male incarnation, the other in his female transvestite guise.
Advertisement
The underlying message is that, it is less our differences that define us than our shared fundamental truths. And it is these that Perry sets out to unearth. An open mind is the tool. An exhibition that superficially flaunts the brash credentials suggested by its title turns out to be emotional, searchingly thoughtful and philosophically subtle. It feels like no accident that it should be opening to the public on the day of a general election. It is only by approaching life with absolute honesty, suggests Perry, that we can tap into what we, as members of the human race, share. That is the key to true popularity.
This show doesn’t feel quite coherent; it has a patchwork, cobbled-together vibe. Most likely you will have seen plenty of the pieces before, even if just on television. But, at its best — and it is at its best when it provokes laughter, that great human leveller — it shows us ways in which the mainstream can prove the most meaningful. The Brexit pots are pieces to stand on the mantel of the British imagination.
Grayson Perry: The Most Popular Art Exhibition Ever! is at the Serpentine Gallery, London W2 (020 7402 6075), June 8 to September 10
