Grayson Perry: The Tomb of the Unknown Craftsman at British Museum on artrepublic.com
Exhibition running from Oct 06 2011
until Feb 19 2012
The Tomb of the Unknown Craftsman is a memorial to makers and builders, all those countless un-named skilled individuals who have made the beautiful man-made wonders of history. They are an artist in the service of their religion, their master, their tribe, their tradition. Grayson Perry has conceived a major new exhibition for the British Museum. As the artist, curator and guide he will explore a range of themes connected with notions of craftsmanship and sacred journeys – from shamanism, magic and holy relics to motorbikes, identity and contemporary culture. The collections of the British Museum consist of over eight million objects made by men and women from every age and corner of the globe. Upturning the familiar convention of a contemporary artist "responding to a museum’s collection", Perry has here developed an entirely new body of new work whilst undertaking a journey of his own through the vast British Museum collection to select over 190 objects that correlate to his own. The exhibition will also feature a number of existing works by the artist, many of which will be on public view for the first time. Perry has chosen an eclectic group of objects - many of which are little-known - from across time and world cultures: from Polynesian fetishes to Buddhist votive offerings, a prehistoric hand axe to 20th century badges, and even a re-engraved coin from 1882 featuring the bust of Queen Victoria with beard and boating hat. From the Prints and Drawings department Perry has selected a map in three parts from 1790, “A Plan of the Road from the City of Destruction to the Celestial City adapted to the Pilgrim's Progress”, which reflects the theme of pilgrimage that is played out in the exhibition and finds it’s contemporary counterpart in the new tapestry by Perry, Map of Truths and Beliefs, 2011. At the exhibition’s heart will sit Perry’s extraordinary new work, The Tomb of the Unknown Craftsman, an elaborate, richly decorated cast-iron coffin-ship - a vessel weighted with the freight of Perry’s imagination and an eloquent testament to the innumerable forgotten artists who through the ages made many of the objects found in the British Museum today. OPENING HOURS: Daily 10.00 -17.30 Image Credits: Grayson Perry, The Rosetta Vase, 2011. Courtesy the Artist and Victoria Miro Gallery, London. Copyright Grayson Perry. Photo: Stephen White Grayson Perry, Our Mother, 2009. Courtesy the Artist and Victoria Miro Gallery, London. Copyright Grayson Perry. Photo: Stephen White Grayson Perry, Map of Truths and Beliefs, (detail), 2011. Courtesy the Artist and The Paragon Press, London. Copyright Grayson Perry. Photo: Alicia Guirao, Factum Arte A painted wooden portable shrine decorated with scenes from the Hindu Epics. Made in Western India, 19th - 20th century. Copyright the Trustees of the British Museum Green glazed composition staff-terminal in the form of the god Bes sitting on a lotus flower with a monkey between his feet. Egypt, 664-332 BC. Copyright the Trustees of the British Museum Dish decorated with bust of William III. Made in Staffordshire by Ralph Simpson, 1700. Copyright the Trustees of the British Museum  |
