Grayson Perry : The Most Popular Art Exhibition Ever! at Arnolfini in Bristol
Posted on: 07 Sep 2017When it comes to artistic coups in the city, they don't get much bigger this year than the Arnolfini's major exhibition of work by Grayson Perry, typically and flamboyant entitled The Most Popular Art Exhibition Ever! Not sure that Grayson heard about the one Banksy did back in 2009!
Renowned as one of art-dom's most quirky, charismatic and acute social commentators, the exhibition grabs by its artistic horns one of Perry's most important and pressing concerns: namely, how contemporary art can best represent today's diverse cross-section of society.
It's an unsurprisingly funny, irreverent and thought-provoking interpretation of the modern world in all its gloriously weird and wonderful forms, digging deep into his artistic well of themes and ideas that repeatedly occur in his work, such as his childhood and life as a tranvestite as well as perceptive studies of sex, religion, class, politics, art and popularity. Even such thorny topics as 'divided Britain' and Brexit don't escape being dissected under the Grayson Perry artistic microscope.
Perry is nothing if not versatile too, working with an impressive range of media such as cast iron, bronze, tapestry, printmaking and ceramics. The exhibition will present more than 25 of Perry's most recent works, including Matching Pair, which he collated through images, ideas and phrases curated through social media; a crowd-sourced piece he used to cover two massive pots, one for Remainers and one for Brexiteers, and which formed the basis of a Channel 4 documentary.
The show marks its first sojourn outside of London and runs from Wednesday 27th September to Sunday 24th December 2017. The exhibition will be open daily from 11am to 6pm. Entry is free with donations welcome.
For more information about this and other exhibitions and events at Arnolfini, click here.
Arnolfini is located at 16 Narrow Quay, Bristol BS1 4QA. Tel. 0117 917 2300
Article by:
Jamie is a writer, blogger, journalist, critic, film fan, soundtrack nerd and all-round Bristolian good egg. He loves the music of Philip Glass, the art of Salvador Dali, the writings of Charles Bukowksi and Hunter S Thompson, the irreverence of Harry Hill, and the timeless, straw-chomping exuberance of The Wurzels. You can sometimes find him railing against a surging tide of passing cyclists, or gorging himself senseless on the Oriental delights of a Cosmos all-you-can-eat buffet.
