Grayson Perry – The Vanity of Small Differences at Manchester Art Gallery

The Adoration of the Cage Fighters - Grayson Perry

Last year, Grayson Perry worked with Channel 4 to create a series of three programmes about taste and class in England, “In the Best Possible Taste,” which resulted in him creating a series of six tapestries entitled “The Vanity of Small Differences.” The tapestries were woven digitally in an edition of six, one set of which was acquired earlier this year by the Arts Council and the British Council, which is now touring venues around the UK and currently on display at the Manchester Art Gallery (to 2 February 2014).

The series is a modern take on Hogarth’s A Rake’s Progress, charting the story of Tim Rakewell from his birth on a council estate in Sunderland, to becoming a middle-class businessman in Tunbridge Wells and then a millionaire in the Cotswolds, and ending with his death in a gutter when he crashes his Ferrari.

The tapestries are as densely packed with symbolism as the Pre-Raphaelite paintings in Manchester Art Gallery’s own collection (Holman Hunt’s Shadow of Death and Ford Madox Brown’s Work are among the highlights), and religious iconography is particularly prominent. Indeed, all but one of Perry’s titles refer explicitly to religious paintings. The Adoration of the Cage Fighters, The Agony in the Car Park, Expulsion from Number 8 Eden Close, The Annunciation of the Virgin Deal, #Lamentation; the other tapestry, the fifth in the series, is entitled, The Upper Class at Bay, and also draws on religious iconography with an allusion to St Hubert’s vision of Christ in the antlers of a stag.

These are playful, powerful and thought-provoking works. Perry is a kind of artist-prophet, questioning society to reflect on its values. If Perry can take what he sees as the best bits of religion, the believer might also take something from his work. His critique of the vanity of social aspiration gives cause to reflect upon Ecclesiastes’ comment “vanity of vanities! All is vanity” (1:2), and Perry’s depiction of versions of sacred episodes in the modern world serves as a reminder that the Gospels are narratives that we should not simply read but inhabit (although not in the parodic ways that Perry’s protagonist does).

The display at Manchester Art Gallery includes a set of Hogarth’s engravings on loan from the Whitworth Art Gallery and Manchester Art Gallery’s own Print for a Politician (2005). Highlights of the permanent collection currently on display in the main galleries include works by the Pre-Raphaelites and a recently re-displayed collection of Dutch paintings.

For information about the display at Manchester Art Gallery and dates for the rest of the tour (Birmingham, Liverpool, Leeds): www.manchestergalleries.org/whats-on/exhibitions/index.php?itemID=109

Perry's Reith lectures are available to listen and download on the BBC's website: www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/reith