SYDNEY.- The most comprehensive survey of works by acclaimed contemporary British artist, Grayson Perry, is on view at the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia. Presented as part of the 2015-2016 Sydney International Art Series, this Sydney-exclusive exhibition is Perry’s first major survey in the Southern hemisphere, running from 10 December 2015 to 1 May 2016.

The Sydney International Art Series brings the world’s most outstanding exhibitions exclusively to Sydney, Australia. Created by the NSW Government’s tourism and major events agency, Destination NSW, the Sydney International Art Series is a signature event on the NSW Events Calendar.

NSW Minister for Trade, Tourism and Major Events Stuart Ayres said, “Grayson Perry is one of Britain’s most renowned contemporary artists and this major exhibition is proudly presented as part of the Sydney International Art Series.”

“Since its creation in 2010, the Sydney International Art Series has generated over $90 million in visitor expenditure for NSW and attracted over 1.4 million attendees. It has also brought more than 116,000 overseas and interstate visitors to Sydney specifically to view the exhibitions. Grayson Perry: My Pretty Little Art Career is another outstanding exhibition that will bring many visitors to Sydney over the next five months.”

Curated especially for the MCA by Chief Curator Rachel Kent, Grayson Perry: My Pretty Little Art Career introduces the full spectrum of the artist’s practice from the early 1980s to the present and encompasses a diverse and comprehensive selection of the artist’s ceramic works, sculptures in iron and bronze, prints and drawings, and his ambitious, large-scale tapestries.

An astute chronicler of contemporary life, Grayson Perry infuses his artworks with a sly humour and reflection on society past and present. In this survey exhibition, he explores a range of ideas which will resonate for Australian audiences; among them, a consideration of masculinity and what it means to be male in today’s complex world. He has also explored ideas about nationhood and national identity – specifically, British social class and a history of taste – which offer a pertinent historical context through which to consider current debates around Australian national identity, the colonial legacy and independence movements.

Museum of Contemporary Art Director, Elizabeth Ann Macgregor OBE, commented: “Grayson Perry is one of Britain’s most acclaimed contemporary artists. With his strong commitment to audiences and his media presence, Grayson’s appeal extends beyond the art world. It is exciting to be welcoming him and his work to Sydney for the first time in the region.”

A highlight of the exhibition, Precious Boys (2004), is a 53cm tall glazed ceramic pot inspired by a Satsuma vase design from nineteenth-century Japanese ceramics. The vase depicts incised bomber planes and a gathering of men wearing women’s clothing where the original design depicted a shoal of carp and decorative lily pads. In this vase Perry explores the vulnerable image of male identity and references his own transvestitism.

Another highlight is a sculpture made from cast iron, oil paint, glass, rope, wood, flint hand axe of a Viking-style death ship titled The Tomb of the Unknown Craftsman (2011), which was the centerpiece of Perry’s 2011 exhibition at the British Museum. Alongside this, the artist presented historical objects from the Museum’s encyclopaedic collections next to his own works, opening up a wealth of visual, aesthetic and thematic relationships.

A more recent work, The Vanity of Small Differences (2012), is a six-part tapestry cycle which tells a cautionary tale of modern class mobility and draws inspiration from the renowned English satirist William Hogarth’s A Rake’s Progress (1733). Hogarth’s eight paintings chronicled the rise and fall of Tom Rakewell, a young man who inherits then squanders a fortune inherited from his miserly father, before dying in an insane asylum. Perry’s tapestries instead depict the life and death of Tim Rakewell, a young man of working class origins who climbs the social ladder to middle and then upper class life, earning a fortune from his computer start-up which he sells for 270 million pounds. Acquiring country estates, a younger wife and a Ferrari, he crashes his car into a lamppost in suburban Essex and dies in the arms of a female passer-by.
Grayson Perry will be present for the opening events, delivering a sold out keynote lecture to introduce his exhibition at the Sydney Opera House on Sunday 13 December, titled ‘How to be an artist just like me’.