Panoramas of British Class and Identity: Grayson Perry at Pera

There is nothing quite like entering a room full of Grayson Perry tapestries, with their colours, animated figures, passions and bric-a-brac. But maybe there is; it is like entering the homes of the different British classes all at once and is always a bit overwhelming. Perry is the familiar face of contemporary British art, the kind of artist who does not shy away from sharing the artistic process and all its stages with his audience. Perry has in fact made documentaries of many of the pieces he has produced, including most of the work that is displayed at Pera Museum in Istanbul at the moment. The exhibition curated by Linsey Young takes its name from the series of tapestries that Perry produced under the title "The Vanity of Small Differences" and the tapestries are exhibited along with their "production documentary." The documentary series itself is called "In the Best Possible Taste." For each tapestry Perry spends time with what he calls different the "clans" of Britain, sketching and taking notes. Some of these notes are also displayed at the exhibition and it is interesting to see what made it to the final tapestry and what impressions remained behind. One field note summarizes the leading question of his project: Does being financially impoverished mean being aesthetically impoverished? Is "taste" middle class?

Perry's influences are numerous. Among them number the 18th-century painter, William Hogarth, and his series of engravings titled "The Rake's Progress." The series depicts the journey of Tom Rakewell, a capitalist consumer avant-la-lettre who falls into all the possible traps that society has to offer him. Reproductions of these engravings are also displayed at the Pera exhibition and this helps familiarize the viewer with the roots of the depictions of consumer culture in British art. In one of the episodes of the documentary, Perry addresses the question of why he tells these stories through tapestries. Any visitor to the U.K.'s stately homes will know that tapestries were the luxury of the rich and they were about the pastimes of rich folk such as hunting and warring. Perry uses this upper-class medium and tells the stories of the different classes of England. In the series "The Vanity of Small Differences," he follows the adventures of Tim, the modern day Tom Rakewell, and his passage from one class to another - spoiler alert! - a sad story that ends in a car crash.

One of my favourite tapestries in the series, possibly because I can recognize the items placed in it through my own encounters with the British, is called the "Annunciation of the Virgin Deal." The captions explicitly point out that another one of Perry's influences is Christian and devotional art. In the tapestry, Tim, who has just won a deal for his company, is depicted in a middle class home, cluttered with status symbol objects; organic vegetables wrapped in the Guardian (although the tapestry doesn't reveal the full name of the paper, the caption goes ahead and spells it out in full), Afghan carpets and penguin mugs. Another favourite of mine is entitled "The Adoration of the Cage Fighters." Although the central figures are a mother and child (Tim) to whom two groups from the working classes - football fans and car enthusiasts - are giving gifts, my eyes wander immediately to the three colorful, larger-than-life women on the right. They are women we have spent time with in the documentary, all dressed up to the nines to have unapologetic fun out on the town after their day's/week's work - and their spirit is reflected in the movement and luminosity that Perry has managed to give to their figures.

Perry trained as a ceramic artist and still works in the medium. His latest show at the National Portrait Gallery "Who Are You?," which ended only recently at the end of March 2015, also has an accompanying documentary, and boasts several pots as an experimental form of portraiture. The pots included in the exhibition at a separate level in Pera are earlier works, and have a self-referential tone. Perry's teddy bear Alan Measles (incidentally also his twitter handle) works as his alter ago at many levels. Here we have to also mention Claire, Perry's female alter ego, who makes a small appearance at the exhibition in Pera, as part of Perry's take on the Afghan War Carpet. Alan, however, is present in all his glory, including as a ceramic sculpture named "Wise Alan" sitting cross-legged and with some kind of ceremonial headgear. While on the face of it, the reference could be to any religion with sitting wise figures, the caption says that the sculpture "is intended as an Islamic representation of Alan Measles," and tells us we need to take people's, or teddy bears' professions of Islam at face value. Keeping with the self-referential tone, this part of the exhibition also includes mind maps of both the artist and "The Englishman." There are also two earlier tapestries here, one of them called "The Walthamstow Tapestry," with small figures engaged in various activities with brand names stitched right underneath them, reminding us no human activity now is carried out without reference to company names. The tapestry almost functions like a floor plan for a big shopping center that the U.K., or developed countries in general, have transformed into. The emphasis on how consumption and the shopping center has become central to our lives was carried over to one of his tapestries in his last show (not on display here) called "The Ashford Hijab," depicting the tensions in the life of an English convert to Islam: that between continuing with a consumerist lifestyle and a more modest one that Islam is supposed to promote. Indeed, hijabis, Muslim or otherwise, seem to be very present in Perry's work. His approach to art and insistence on representing all sections of society can be said to be democratizing; there is indeed one pot called "Taste and Democracy," depicting people's reaction to him when he won the prestigious Turner Prize in 2003. Tapestries with place names like Walthamstow and Ashford naturally call to mind that other tapestry with a place name, the Bayeux Tapestry, depicting the events that led to the Norman conquest of England (1066), an event that has been crucial in the shaping of English character and identity. And so although playful on many levels, Perry's tapestries engage in the same serious business of history and myth-making for contemporary Britain. The exhibition is a delight and an assault on the senses at the same time and a must see for anyone interested in contemporary art and/or British identity- see it before it ends on 26 July.