Grayson Perry: Who Are You?, National Portrait Gallery - exhibition review

Grayson Perry’s new show is rollickingly entertaining and funny. But visually, it’s a bit hideous
Ben Luke19 January 2015

Grayson Perry's in uncharted territory for artists. Plenty have been media stars, but none have managed to get under the skin of British culture on TV, as Perry does so intelligently in the Channel 4 series about identity that this show accompanies, reviewed by Alastair McKay (right).

It documents the 14 portraits — in the loosest sense — that Perry’s made of mainly ordinary Britons, but also the disgraced politician Chris Huhne and reality TV star Rylan Clark. All 14 portraits has been put on show among the NPG’s collection.

Perry’s documentary making is certainly affecting his art — and sometimes for the worse. The biggest development has been his use of tapestry. An enormous one, Comfort Blanket, is at the top of the NPG stairs — a vast embroidered banknote, a portrait of Britain with a grinning head of the Queen, teeming with British references and values from Dad’s Army to “fair play”. It’s rollickingly entertaining and funny. But visually, it’s a bit hideous.

There are many good things here, though. I feel Perry’s spiky drawing style suits his pots best — you sense him still honing the craft he’s perfected over 30 years. His vase portraying Huhne is brilliant satire and also weirdly beautiful. Meanwhile, I Am a Man, his brass sculpture capturing Alexander, a female to male transsexual, as a modern-day Benin sculpture, is touching.

Interestingly, I saw these last two works after watching the first of the Channel 4 programmes. Others, I saw first as art in the NPG, with an explanation of the people being portrayed on a label, but without the TV backstory.

Often, as with Line of Departure, an Afghan rug-style tapestry depicting three wounded war veterans, they’re too oblique, only really complete when seen together with the documentary. And when Perry’s art needs his TV stuff to animate it, I think we have a problem.

Oct 25-Mar 15 (020 7306 0055, npg.org.uk)

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