'The Vanity of Small Differences' at Pitzhanger Manor
Is Grayson Perry's reflection on taste and class faux-naive or just simplistic?
Detail from ‘The Upper Class at Bay’, Grayson Perry, 2012
July 23, 2024
Pitzhanger Manor has just opened an exhibition of Grayson Perry’s tapestried panorama of British class, ‘The Vanity of Small Differences’. This is notable: Perry pastiches ‘A Rake’s Progress’ by Hogarth, which was first displayed at our very own Pitzhanger Manor over 200 years ago. Hogarth depicted a layabout’s fall from upper-class grace to moral squalor. Grayson Perry instead depicts the social climb and moral fall of Tim Rakewell.
In the first piece, a mother sits entranced by her phone while a child squirms on her knee, both ensconced within a womb-like sac. In another, a singer’s arms are splayed out, Christlike; a mock-Mary weeps at his feet in a cartoonish echo of Renaissance iconography. The figures are lurid and hunched. Modernity has made our eyes bulge.
The background of each piece is littered with brands: Adidas bags, Range Rovers, and William Morris wallpaper all signal the class metamorphosis Tim Rakewell undergoes. Perry’s central interest here seems to be class, and taste as the aesthetic indicator of class. But although Perry’s use of brands is interesting, it becomes overdone and fails to replace actual characterisation – the gleams of individuality we expect in a portrait. Brands precede essence for Perry, which borders on simplistic.
This tendency to reduce class to choice of wallpaper occasionally feels ham-fisted: in ‘Expulsion from Number 8 Eden Close’, the world and canvas are split into the very working-class and very middle-class. The playful lack of nuance is both humorous and grating; the joke drags on as we work our way to the land of tweed. We cross our fingers that Perry’s faux-naivety is not naivety.
Detail from ‘The Agony in the Car Park’
But this policy of turning social class into a question of taste sometimes works. In a later scene, mugs labelled ‘Knowing Laughter’ sit quietly amongst the organic tomatoes. This time, it feels spot on. But that is a matter of preference. As Perry seems to expose, the reviewer’s reaction to an exhibition about taste is just assertion of personal taste.
The danger of a chronological collection like this is that artistic shortcuts become apparent. We wonder if Perry’s only manoeuvre is just mixing the sublime and the ridiculous. Organised silliness starts to be tiresome: in one piece, a rubber duck sitting on the windowsill feels random rather than imaginative. Or take an odd image of a car with the bonnet up, bowels exposed. Is this what Perry does with British class, exposing its inner workings? Or is his artistic mechanism more like the duck on a windowsill, random with a veneer of complexity? I find Perry is often – but not always – sharply observant of cultural signals, and I’m fond of his garish creations. But then, taste is the great impasse. So I’ll leave it at that, because I have to.
Eleanor Grant
The exhibition runs until 8 December and access is with general admission to Pitzhanger Manor.
There is unlimited free access for Members at all times and Ealing borough residents can get free entry on Sundays 10am–noon and First Thursdays 5–8pm.
Pitzhanger Manor and Gallery is open from Wednesday to Sunday 10am–5pm , including Bank Holidays (First Thursday of the Month: 10am–8pm).
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