19 June 2008 - 22 September 2008




The work of Grayson Perry is presented in a solo exhibition from 19 June to 22 September 2008 at Musée d’Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean, Mudam Luxembourg. Grayson Perry, the Turner Prize winner of 2003, is one of the most valued and notable contemporary artists in U.K. mainly through his provocative pots. The exhibition Grayson Perry: My Civilisation is retracing the evolution of Perry’s practice over two decades. It is made up of a unique series of pottery, sculptures and drawings. Far from conventional iconography, the scenes that Perry depicts in his work are impressive and provocative due to their singularity.

Grayson Perry was born in Chelmsford (U.K.) in 1960, and currently lives in London.

After graduating from Portsmouth Polytechnic, Perry was mostly engaged in film production and performance activities in the first half of the 1980s as a member of a group called “Neo-Naturist.” He began to make ceramic works after attending a course on ceramics in the middle of the 1980s. The special feature of Perry’s ceramic works is its visual multi-layered quality, which is made possible by copying images from the photos that he took of magazines as well as decorative patterns commonly used for the mass-produced earthenware
on the surface of a pot to make them look lying on top of one another, in addition to depicting various contemporary subjects, such as violence, prejudice, sexual suppression, popular culture, and religious faith, on the forms borrowed from Greek, Chinese or Japanese classic pots.

While creating many ceramic works with elaborate workmanship, he engages in a wide range of media such as embroideries, photographs, prints and sculpture. He often refers to the influences of the peculiar, wild fantasies of outsider artist Henry Darger* on his works. He has always been consistent, however, in that he sends messages, without fear of being misunderstood and with fantasy and humorous flavour, regarding such serious topics as violence both domestic and social, prejudices, sexual suppressions, conventional practices and beliefs that people rely on, and further, self-identification. Many of his works contain autobiographical elements as well.

Perry is a transvestite, and his female image as “Claire” often appears and plays an important
role in his works. He does not give a single answer concerning his identity nor moral standards of society but questions them. Today his works provide viewers with a lot of food for thought, because they reveal universal problems latent in any society, through showing more than one viewpoint and different value judgments.

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Mudam Luxembourg
Musée d’Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean
3, Park Dräi Eechelen
L-1499 Luxembourg
info@mudam.lu
www.mudam.lu


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