A Son of the Rock

A couple of weeks ago myself and the good lady went to the Grayson Perry Exhibition at the National Gallery in Edinburgh. It’s called Smash Hits.

I wasn’t expecting much as what I’ve seen of his work on television didn’t inspire me. However we are Friends of the National Galleries and that has various benefits – among them a discount in their cafés  (the one in Modern Two is excellent) and free entry to exhibitions such as this. (I would not have paid the entrance fee of £19.)

I had known Perry made his name as a potter and has an alter ego as Claire whom I find tiresome in the extreme.

I was, though, pleasantly surprised to see in the first gallery two sculptures which to me had a Japanese look.

Our Father and Our Mother. Clicking on the links should take you to my photos of the blurb accompanying each:-

The next gallery had a series of tapestries collectively titled The Vanity of Small Differences and based on Hogarth’s Rake’s Progress but updated for the Twenty-First century:-

Note the cafetiere and “literature” mugs in the second one above. Apparently these are emblems of being middle class. I admit to using a cafetiere. I don’t have literature mugs though.

The background in the last one seemed to me to sum up life in Britain in latter years:-

Another huge tapestry illustrated Perry’s lack of originality. It’s titled Morris, Gainsborough, Turner, Riley:-

His “Battle of Britain” ended up as a conscious channelling of Paul Nash. It’s quite effective though:-