Event date: 30 November 2017
Grayson Perry will be joining us for a One Bank Flagship seminar entitled "I've Read All the Academic Papers on Empathy" on 30 November 2017.
In his work Grayson Perry uses traditional media such as ceramics, cast iron, bronze, printmaking and tapestry. He tackles subjects that are universally human: identity, gender, social status, sexuality, religion.
Perry is a great chronicler of contemporary life, drawing in the viewer with wit, affecting sentiment and nostalgia as well as fear and anger. Autobiographical references – to the artist's childhood, his family and his transvestite alter ego Claire – can be read in tandem with questions about décor and decorum, class and taste, and the status of the artist versus that of the artisan.
Covered with sgraffito drawings, handwritten and stencilled texts, stamped patterns, photographic transfers and rich glazes, Perry's pots are multi-layered and complex.
Just as an apparently benign or conservative medium such as ceramics is used to convey challenging ideas, Perry's tapestries take an art form traditionally associated with grand houses and play with the idea of using this ancient allegorical art to elevate the commonplace dramas of modern British life. Politics, consumerism, history and art history are bound up in the work, in both subject and medium.
Born in Chelmsford, Essex in 1960, Grayson Perry lives and works in London. The Most Popular Art Exhibition Ever!, a major presentation of his work, was on view at Serpentine Galleries, London, during the summer of 2017, travelling subsequently to Arnolfini, Bristol (until 24 December 2017). Institutional venues for recent national and international solo exhibitions include ARoS Aarhus Art Museum, Aarhus (2016); Bonnefantenmuseum, Maastricht (2016); Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney (2015 - 2016) and Turner Contemporary, Margate (2015).
In 2011, The British Museum opened The Tomb of the Unknown Craftsman, a critically acclaimed show in which Perry combined his own works with historical artefacts chosen from the vast British Museum collection. The Vanity of Small Differences, Perry's monumental suite of tapestries exploring the subject of taste in contemporary Britain, was acquired by The Arts Council Collection and British Council and has subsequently toured throughout the UK and Europe. The making of these works was chronicled in the first of Perry's Channel 4 television series, In the Best Possible Taste, a 2013 Bafta Specialist Factual winner.
Perry delivered The Reith Lectures, BBC Radio 4's annual flagship talk series, in 2013; his ensuing book Playing to the Gallery is published by Penguin.
Perry's second Bafta-winning television series Who Are You?, about identity, was broadcast in 2014, accompanied by a solo presentation of works at the National Portrait Gallery, London. The series All Man, which considered masculinity, followed in 2016, with Allen Lane publishing the related book The Descent of Man.
The artist's A House for Essex, a permanent building designed in collaboration with FAT Architecture, was constructed in the North Essex countryside in 2015. This was documented in television programme, Grayson Perry’s Dream House, broadcast on Channel 4.
Winner of the 2003 Turner Prize, Perry was elected a Royal Academician in 2012, and received a CBE in the Queen's Birthday Honours List in 2013; he has been awarded the prestigious appointments of Trustee of the British Museum and Chancellor of the University of the Arts London (both in 2015), and received a RIBA Honorary Fellowship in 2016.
This event is free, however, places are limited. To register your interest, please complete the form below. Please note attendance is restricted to the registered attendee.
For any queries about this event, please contact stakeholderrelations@bankofengland.co.uk.