Grayson Perry: Smash Hits

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I’m never afraid of being local and of my period. I don’t think Raphael worried about being an international artist or what people would think of his art in 500 years’ time – he just got on with it. Many of the Scottish women artists celebrated in this gathering at Edinburgh’s Dovecot Studios are very well known. But the first woman represented here is entirely forgotten: Catherine Read. Born near Dundee in 1723, she might have received no education at all had her family not had to flee Scotland for France after the battle of Culloden. In Paris, Read studied with the pastel portraitist Maurice-Quentin de La Tour. Her own portraits became so popular they were reproduced everywhere as prints.

But even though there are so many works to look at, my sense is that there is always more to read. Statements – sardonic jibes, headlines, overheard dialogue, Perry’s own coruscating repartee, the entire guest list of art world names at a Turner prize dinner – are central to almost everything here. This is Perry’s largest show yet, but quantity doesn’t mean new depth or insight. No single work makes a greater claim on your attention than any other in this incessantly garrulous art. And perhaps this has something to do with the artist’s exceptional versatility as writer, broadcaster, journalist, poet and performer. Ultimately, everything is a form of direct public speech for Perry, the art just another kind of delivery bike. verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ A section of In Its Familiarity, Golden (2015), the second part of the Essex House Tapestries by Grayson Perry, on display at the Scottish Royal Academy, Edinburgh. Photograph: John Sinclair Vote for Me is a self-portrait as Margaret Thatcher. There’s an assumption in the art world that all artists are left of centre – and that all their audience is left of centre as well. They’re just alienating half their audience!A magnificent vision of the elements in full force’: Joan Eardley’s Winter Sea III (1959). Photograph: Andrew Smart/Estate of Joan Eardley. All Rights Reserved, DACS 2020

The elegant Georgian galleries are stuffed, wall to wall, floor to ceiling, with countless glass cases for the costly pots. Perry’s pink motorbike is ostentatiously parked, with its rear-wheel shrine for Alan Measles, his childhood teddy, and the artist’s alter ego slips in everywhere too, with a special niche for her Bo Peep dresses. Perry gives it everything he’s got.

Comments

I made this in my second year studying Fine Art at Portsmouth Polytechnic. We had a little foundry and there was a man there – ex-SAS, he smelled of snuff and oil – who took me under his wing because I was one of the few students who liked doing metal casting. I was a product of post-modernism, throwing images together ironically. I was also obsessed with both motorcycles (despite being unable to afford one at the time) and the intricate workmanship of early English artefacts such as those discovered at Sutton Hoo. To me, Englishness means having a sense of humour, a certain pragmatic tolerance and a sense of fair play. But all these things are being eroded. For this piece, I thought about the lion as a symbol of power, particularly male power in many cultures, even in countries where lions are not a native species, like England.