insideKENT Magazine Issue 55 - October 2016 | Page 36

ARTS+ENTERTAINMENT

The Agony in the Car Park, Grayson Perry, 2012

laughing at ourselves
with grayson perry
OPENING THIS MONTH, THE VANITY OF SMALL DIFFERENCES,
CHALLENGES OUR PERCEPTION OF CLASS, TASTE AND BRITISH SOCIETY.

The Vanity of Small Differences, a series of
six exuberant tapestries by the Turner-Prize
winning artist Grayson Perry, will go on
display at The Beaney House of Art &
Knowledge in Canterbury this October.
The large-scale tapestries were created
alongside the BAFTA award-winning
Channel 4 series, All in the Best Possible
Taste, which follows Perry as he embarks
‘on a safari amongst the taste tribes of
Britain’ to gain inspiration for his work. Perry
said: “Of all the pieces I have made this
was the one I conceived from the outset as
a public artwork. I hope that wherever it
goes it not only delights the eyes but also
sparks debate about class, taste and British
Society.”
Inspired by the 18th-century painter William
Hogarth’s moral tale, A Rake’s Progress,
Perry’s tapestries follow the rise and fall of
a fictional anti-hero called Tim Rakewell, as
he makes his way up the echelons of British
society only to meet his tragic end in a
bloody car accident.

Lamentation (detail), Grayson Perry, 2012

A very British fascination with taste and class
Grayson Perry has always been fascinated by taste:
why people buy the things they do, wear the things
they wear and what they're trying to say about
themselves when they make those choices. He also
explores how closely our definition of taste is bound

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with our perception of class. In the exhibition
companion Grayson writes: “The British care about
taste because it is inextricably woven into our system
of social class. I think that – more than any other
factor, more than age, race, religion or sexuality –
one’s social class determines one’s taste.”