Tuesday 1 November 2011

Controversial

Grayson Perry seems like a nice man, he's quite charismatic and interesting, but I don't like what he does much at all. He just makes big pots and then transfers pictures onto them.

There seems no real craftsmanship or innovation or ideas, it's like the art world has just gone 'Craft! Edgy craft! Craft with edge! Transvestism! How very, very cutting edge, my dear!" And hence the Turner prize & the British Museum and all.

When you look at the shape of what he does without all the embellishments, and take away what you know about this colourful artist... what he really makes is bog standard with glossy pictures applied on top.

As opposed to someone clearly blazing with talent, like Lucy Rie, who stopped pottery being all clumsy & hippy & earnest, but turned it into a real art. (You can see what I'm talking about in the great V&A Handmade in Britain series on the iPlayer at the moment, where you can also see Edmund de Waal being quite stupendously pretentious, like he can't help spouting solid gold nonsense for Private Eye's Pseud's Corner. Quite put me off buying his book.)

And Perry's tranny character is creepy. Soz.

4 comments:

  1. I found De Waal's book very austere - in a good way. Definitely not pseudy. I'm now worried about the follow up...

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  2. Maybe it's just the way he talks. Or maybe he's been in the art world too long. I was interested to read the book before...

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  3. The best thing about those pots is that they do have a use, which is more than you can say about a painting.

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  4. What use? Do you ever see a nice bunch of flowers in them Billy?

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