Claudia Massie

The greatest artist chronicler of our times: Grayson Perry, at the Edinburgh Art Festival, reviewed

Scotland has no such chronicler. Instead we have the tortured Peter Howson, whose art never wears its distress lightly

’Sponsored by You’, 2019, by Grayson Perry. © Grayson Perry. Courtesy the artist, Paragon / Contemporary Editions Ltd and Victoria Miro. Photo: Jack Hems 
issue 02 September 2023

The busiest show in Edinburgh must be Grayson Perry: Smash Hits which, a month into its run, still has people queuing at 10 a.m. His original title, National Treasure, was rejected because ‘national’ is a politically loaded term in Scotland. But Perry’s lens is resolutely fixed on England and Englishness. Seen from a Scottish perspective, this riot of rococo folkishness is familiar and exotic.

Grayson Perry is the greatest artist chronicler of our times, with an omnificent style that’s all substance

The exuberant exhibition, which is curated by the National Galleries of Scotland but showing at the Royal Scottish Academy and ends on 12 November, slaps the viewer around the face with its huge narrative tapestries, prints and pots. It gallops thematically through four decades, weaving Perry’s own origin tale with the story of England: high and low, rich and poor, ancient and modern. In his beautiful, queasy, messed-up country, Richard Dadd and William Hogarth are reborn to share tales of tax evaders, divine teddy bears and hollow social-media warriors. The colour etching, ‘Our Town’ (2022), maps the ‘emotional geography’ of modern England, sketching a dispiriting fantasy land where drinkers choose between ‘The Selfie and Socialist’ or ‘Style over Substance’ pubs before retreating to their homes in ‘Extremis’, ‘Apathy’, ‘Awks’ or ‘Identaria’. Little England sits beside a blue river called ‘Smug’, in which meaningless modern terms drift by: ‘Mainstream Media’, ‘Gone Viral’, ‘Facepalm’. Presenting the town from the oblique, bird’s-eye angle of an 18th-century map, Perry skewers a 21st-century state of mind with all-seeing grace.

‘Our Town’, 2022, by Grayson Perry. Image: Courtesy the artist, Paragon / Contemporary Editions Ltd and Victoria Miro

Endlessly inventive and, as he puts it, forever ‘learning on the job’, he is a jack of all trades and a master of them all too, constantly discovering new ways to enrich his ever-expanding vision of England.

GIF Image

You might disagree with half of it, but you’ll enjoy reading all of it

TRY 3 MONTHS FOR $5
Our magazine articles are for subscribers only. Start your 3-month trial today for just $5 and subscribe to more than one view

Comments

Join the debate for just £1 a month

Be part of the conversation with other Spectator readers by getting your first three months for £3.

Already a subscriber? Log in