Review - Grayson Perry: Delusions of Grandeur
By Erin Deborah Waks
Sir Grayson Perry’s art is always a little weird. I like to think he’d appreciate me saying that.
But placing his tapestries, neon colours and ironic vases in the middle of The Wallace Collection, known for its antiquities and classical paintings, really shines a light on just how odd - how strange, different, rebellious - it really is.
I’d spent the first hour of my afternoon on a guided tour of the main works of the gallery. To go from observing ceramics owned by the French royal family, paintings of Madame de Pompadour and furniture reminiscent of Versailles into the exhibition space downstairs in the imposing mansion was to be transported into a bizarre alternate reality.
That is, I believe, the point.
Perry’s latest exhibition is really quite intriguing. He takes many of the tropes and themes of historic art and flips them entirely on their head, essentially questioning - as the show’s title suggests - how such grandiose notions are, perhaps, mere delusions. Through the lens of Perry’s own subvertive works as well of those of ‘outsider’ artists (Aloise Corbaz, Madge Gill), he examines the role art plays in shaping history.
That’s all well and good, and of course interesting, but Perry - always the innovator - takes things a step further.
The artist creates a fictional character, another outsider artist, named Shirley Smith. ‘Shirley’ suffers from mental illness, as we learn, and has one great delusion - she believes she is the rightful heir to the Wallace Collection and its contents. In this way, the exhibition highlights ideas of gender, class, mental health and the art world in a way that is innately tied up in the location it finds itself in. It is not an art show that could easily be transported into any exhibition space in the city.
It is clever. Perry creates works as though he were Shirley - indeed, each piece is explained through an audioguide led by the artist himself - and their role in feeding or expressing her delusions is unveiled. A tapestry depicts Shirley’s belief she should live amid the carpeted rooms of the Collection’s Hertford House. Painted ceramics portray her view this is her rightful home.
Some of Perry’s works are a little on the nose for my liking - a vase with phrases such as ‘quaint poverty’ leave little to be analysed - but are nonetheless hilarious, apt and, frankly, colourful enough to draw in even the least interested of visitors.
This exhibition is different, and for that well worth a visit. You might not like Perry’s work - or, indeed, that of his fictional Shirley - but you can’t deny, he’s a clever, clever soul.
Grayson Perry: Delusions of Grandeur - The Wallace Collection
