British Museum - Grayson Perry: The Tomb of the Unknown Craftsman

Grayson Perry: The Tomb Of The Unknown Craftsman

Don't look too hard for meaning here.
i am not a historian, i am am artist. That is all.
When i was  young I had an imaginary civilisation.
I became an artist and my civilisation traded with the world and all its history.
Now i am not sure where my imagination stops and the world starts.
Deep in the mountains of my mind there is a scared place where is a monument to skill.
The tomb of the unknown craftsman is just as real as everything else in this museum,
the ideas and beliefs behind it and just as real.
You are real pilgrims.
That i am an artist and not a historian and this is an art exhibition does not mean it is  any less real.
Reality can be new as well as old, poetic as well as factual and funny as well as grimes.
The tomb of the unknown craftsman could be another name for the British museum.    

Kenilworth Am1

Kenilworth Am1

Kenilworth Am1

Grayson Perry, an English artist, famous on his beautiful ceramic vases and transvestite. i think this is the first time British Museum held a contemporary artist exhibition.

before you come in the show room, you would see an exaggerating and colourful motobike. Garyson and his pope Alan Measles rode this bike to Germany as a trip to gain famous of Alan Measles.

inside, there are many heritages, ancient items and of coure, Grayson Perry's work.  this exhibition is extremely thought provoking and clever. i almost write down every single word that Perry explained for his show.

there is another quotation i like, especially the bold words :

few civilisation spring up spontaneously or develop in isolation. culture borrow and adapt. i enjoy artefacts where this give and take in more obvious and dissonant. new religions try to recruit by using the sites and symbols of the belief system they are trying to replace. craftsmen make artefacts they think will appeal to visitors from abroad. sometimes they get it wrong in a charming way, creativity is often just mistakes. 

   

 everything in British museum is contemporary once.

we trust maps, maps are meant to be trustworthy diagram of reality. contains some very human bias. maps of feelings, beliefs, and the irrational.    

   

Barnaby Barford

Salads? I'll give them fucking salads! 

We have a "Visiting Practitioner Talk" every Wednesday, from beginning to now, we had Tom Guald ( a cartoonist and illustrator, his drawings are simple and concise, can be seen in many publications) , Alice Stevenson ( an illustrator and surface pattern designer, work for Marc Jacobs, Hugo Boss and etc ), James Jarvis ( very famous illustrator and toy designer, i have already seen some of his work before, maybe 10 years ago, not sure), and my favourite one - Barnaby Barford ,who is an artist and filmmaker use the ceramic medium to create narrative scenes , most of time, these scenes are very satire.

The Reason why i enjoyed this lecture is not only his witty work but also his inspiring presentation. His work doesn't relative to illustration directly, But these images appear to tell stories in strong and humourous way. In other words, he make an illustration with these 3 dimensional objects.   

Wait until I get home, they're going to go crazy!

The way Barford work is reproducing the porcelain figures which are purchased from mass markets and antique shops. Cutting them, exchanging the part of them, and also repainting them. To be honest, i really cant tell these figures are assembly and remade :P

At least I'm still here

The stories he tell is reflective of current affairs, for instant, alcohol and teen drinking, teen gangsters and guns, celebrity culture, fast food globalization, and so on. Very irony but true.

Shortly After the Marriage (1743) by William Hogarth(1697-1764)

In this talk, Barford mentioned Hogarth, Chaucer, Dickens and Shakespeare as his inspirations, and displayed some paintings from Hogarth, these  compositions are dramatical and powerful. And Dickens and Shakespeare are well-known geniuses at using words to describe people and affairs in that periods. All of these masters' works have something in common, that are telling stories brilliantly and responding to the era they lived in. So, it is easy to understand why the scenes that Barford created are narrative and closing to everyone.      

Barford showed us other three film clips as well, two of them are masterpieces from Jan Svankmajer, i have seen them before.(By the way, Jan Svankmajer is an original creator and pioneer undoubtedly) ,and the other one is so ridiculous funny, Please search "Nigella XXXMAS" on youtube. i won't put that thing in my blog XD

Final, here is Barford's film called "Damaged Goods" , that is an 100% love story, looks like a tragic romance, but its ending is quite happy. ( Just click the title, it would link to the page)