The far side of Grayson Perry RA

RA is the Royal Academy of Arts Magazine and the Summer 2012 issue has just arrived:

I like Grayson Perry (as I explained in a post about his British Museum exhibition) and I thought his cover for RA was quite amusing. It was described inside:

Turner Prize-winning artist Grayson Perry RA is famous for his wonderful pots which combine dazzling visual exuberance and dramatic physical presence with imagery that reveals a sharp social observation. For our summer cover he has drawn a special Summer Exhibition pot, bulging inside with the show's goodies, while offering on the outside a gently teasing vision of its supposedly Waitrose-shopping, Radio 4-listening, National Trust-supporting audience.

Although I’m not a great fan of the RA Summer Exhibition or BBC1’s Antiques Roadshow, I’m afraid that my household has to put ticks of varying thicknesses, rather than crosses, in all the other ‘boxes’ (including the NT) except for The Proms. This issue of RA is launching a new opinion column with a contribution from Perry, No accounting for taste, on the class basis of aesthetics. As he points out:

In Britain, the most pervasive influence on the things we buy and do is social class.

He goes on to observe that the bedrock notion of middle-class taste is restraint and that:

I think this buttoned-up refinement can be seen in some of my favourite paintings. Someone once described modern British art as 'tightrope walking six inches off the ground'. I interpret this as an observation that British artists such as Paul Nash, Eric Ravilious, Ben Nicholson, even Francis Bacon with his glazed gold frames, did a polite, drawing-room-friendly version of Modernism, unlike those garish shouty foreigners with their café philosophy and angry politics. The shrine to this tasteful notion of bohemia must surely be Charleston in Sussex, the exquisitely faded farmhouse plavground of the Bloomsbury group …

Oh dear, more ticks: Ravilious and Nicholson have appeared in posts here, as would have Nash and Bacon if the opportunity had arisen – and I have been a supporter of the Charleston Trust for over 20 years …

So, just as people used to speculate about the once unseen far side of the moon, what would there have been on the far side of Perry’s RA pot, if it had been made, not just drawn? Well here are some suggestions for additional middle-class, Summer Exhibition-goers preferences in 2012:

The Dordogne
Volvo for sure at one time, but perhaps BMW or Audi now
The Killing or, better, Forbrydelsen
The Duchess of Cambridge
Ikea (mentioned in the article but not on the pot)
A trio of ’national treasures’: Alan Bennett, David Attenborough and Tony Benn
Most but probably not all of GAMA - Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Apple
Emma Bridgewater
Paul Smith (added 1 June)

I will add more if I can think of them, but coontributions are, as always, welcome.

On 5 June Perry is starting a three-part Channel 4 series, In the Best Possible Taste, based on talking to people from some of the tribes that make up modern British society that he came across in Sunderland, Tunbridge Wells, and the Cotswolds. The last of these is mostly located in South West England, of course. If it seems appropriate I will comment here on the series and also on his related exhibition, The Vanity of Small Differences, at the Victoria Miro Gallery, if I get to it.

Addendum 8 June

I should have known better than to try to be clever where Perry is concerned.  His Victoria Miro show includes the original, RA Pot, for the RA cover, and also a companion piece, Tate Pot, (left) for the Tate incorporating another 14 favoured brands. Assuming that there isn’t much to differentiate the taste of Summer Exhibition goers and Tate supporters, it’s a fair conclusion that the Tate pot is in effect the far side of the RA one. Well, I got three right: Apple, Amazon and Ikea. And what is a MINI if not a BMW? But I’m kicking myself about Pret A Manger.

I will post soon about The Vanity of Small Differences and the TV series, but in the meantime I recommend anyone interested in Perry’s work to make the trip to Victoria Miro 14 in Wharf Road, N1 to see Perry's six large tapestries and some new pots.

If, like me, you don’t aspire to the use of taxis, a 43 bus works fine: get out at Windsor Terrace, aim for the back of McDonald’s (not to be found on either pot ...) and look out for the Victoria Miro banner.

Joanna Hogg’s ‘Archipelago’

As I began to read Harry Eyres’s The Slow Lane article, Spotlight on a class apart, in the FT on 19 March, I almost wanted to give Archipelago a miss:

I went to see Joanna Hogg’s latest film, Archipelago, for family reasons – not just because she happens to be a cousin of mine but also because I imagined the film, about an upper-middle-class family having a fraught holiday in the Scilly Isles, might strike some familiar chords.

then later:

Among the birdsongs featured, Hogg has confirmed to me, are those of the stonechat, chiffchaff, whitethroat, curlew, songthrush and wren

After seeing Archipelago, I’m glad my initial suspicions of Eyres’ article being little more than a shameless plug for a relative were unfounded. Most of his article is a slightly tedious apologia for Hogg having made a film about the “upper-middle-classes”. Eyres, (who at 53 may now look a tad older than in his FT photo), judging from remarks made in previous The Slow Lane columns, comes from the upper classes, even though he seems to want to demote himself to the upper-middle. Whether he and Hogg are related to the well-known Eyres family who came with William the Conqueror, I have no idea. And, as one of humble origins, I don't have to agonise about the class stuff. The question is: is it a good film?

Eyres thought it was a small masterpiece, but I’m not so sure. Certainly anyone who admires films like Woody Allen’s September or the films of Eric Rohmer will enjoy it. Conversely, if you’d rather watch paint dry, then you won’t. By the way, Eric Rohmer’s films (and I’ve seen nearly all of them) are usually about the petite bourgeoisie, not haute as Eyres says, and anyway class is different in France. The problems for me were in the photography and in the plot, not the people.

Nearly all the filming was static and long shot, with the action (actors, helicopters etc) moving in and out of frame. Rohmer fans will be familiar with this, but over-used it does get a bit tiring. For me, some tracking and panning are integral to cinematography, as is the use of closer shots of actors as a means for identifying with the characters, something which Hogg seemed to adopt only towards the end.

The plot concerns three members (mother about 50; son, daughter in their 20s) of an archipelagic family being unhappy in their own way on holiday in Tresco (one of the Isles of Scilly, west of SW England). A young woman is employed as cook. An artist coaches mother and daughter and philosophises with the son. However, the holiday is supposed to last a fortnight (in late October judging by the weather and a poppy being worn), but the action and character development doesn’t match – it seems more like a long weekend. The son’s girlfriend is barred from coming; the father never appears; the daughter, attractive, difficult, seems to have no significant other; the son relationship’s with the cook doesn’t evolve (surely not because her class!). These non-happenings detract from the credibility of a realist film. After nearly two hours in the cinema, little seems to have been resolved – just like real life, then - and the knives are packed away to be used another time.

It was good, but not in my mind a “small masterpiece”. However, I have ordered the DVD of Joanna Hogg’s first feature, Unrelated, and I will watch out for her next (Archipelago is already on DVD, by the way). Eric Rohmer didn’t make the third of his Contes moraux, Ma nuit chez Maud, until he was 49, and finished his Contes des quatre saisons at 78. Hogg is a mere 51, so plenty of time for a masterpiece!

ADDENDUM 2 May 2011

I have now watched Hogg’s first film, Unrelated, set in Tuscany, and again there is an “upper middle class” family on the sort of holiday where people are paid to cook for them. They are joined by Anna, a childless forty-something escaping temporarily from a relationship problem, played well by Kathryn Worth. She tries to hang out with the adolescent children (Tom Hiddleston plays the son in this one, too) but fails and finishes up gaining solace from her own generation. The chronology and plot work better than in Archipelago and there’s a similar bags-in-the-hall scene at the end. On the DVD extra Hogg talks about her work – to me she still seems more the photographer that she used to be than a cinematographer. She explains that her use of still shots is a consequence of digital filming technology. Elsewhere, I have read that she intends to direct a third film, to make up a trilogy. She says she will be “returning to the theme of childlessness that I raised in Unrelated, combined with the continued exploration into what family means. I see something that is highly coloured, crowded with people and more physical with a redemptive, optimistic outlook.” Sounds like a holiday in India next.

Maybe I’ve got an eye for the wrong sort of detail, but in the Night Swimming scene in Unrelated, there seems to be a continuity error – or was it part of Anna’s come-on?

ADDENDUM 26 July 2012

To fill newspaper columns at this time of the year, a favourite standby is to round up some suitable names and ask them where they are going on holiday or what books they are going to read. So on 21/22 July in FT Life and Arts various luminaries were asked about their ideal summer breaks, including Joanna Hogg, Film-maker and screenwriter:

How are you spending the summer?
I’m preparing a new film but in August I’m escaping to Göcek in Turkey to relax with 15 friends on a gulet, a traditional sailing boat. …
Where would you like to go next?
Japan in the autumn with [artist husband] Nick but, because of filming, this trip will have to wait until 2013. …

Her IMDb entry sheds no more light currently.  Tom Hiddleston looks a bit busy these days.