Print For A Politician
Print For A Politician
Signed Print
Grayson Perry
Etching, 2005
Signed Print Edition of 59
H 67cm x W 250cm
Critical Review
This signed etching from 2005 is a limited edition of 59 from Grayson Perry’s Maps collection. The horizontal print shows a panoramic landscape that spreads out to include different cities. The depiction is punctuated by what look like different factions intent on fighting each other, the landscape defined by the smoke and crashing airplanes reminiscent of the tragic sceneries of World War II.
The work brings together different forms of art-making through its format and the depiction of the landscape, both evoking traditional Chinese scrolls. The artist claimed he was inspired by the maps of Venice and by the topography of the city, to which he resorted also for his Island Of Bad Art. Inspired by the way the Grand Canal runs through the Italian city and cuts it in half, Perry imagined this topography to serve as the fighting ground for a fictitious battle between many different factions engaged in a never-ending war with each other. However, rather than visually demarcating these opposing groups, Perry purposefully blurred and obscured the differences between the fighters, which results in a confusion of parts for the viewer.
The artist claimed he envisioned the print hanging on the wall of a politician’s office. During the war, the artist imagined the politician looking at the print like a war map, only to realise that the visual signifiers of difference across factions are not as clear as he thought.
Bringing together Perry’s inclination to mockery and humour together with his interest in maps and topography, this work is what the artist calls a playscape, “the sort of imaginative universe you spread out in front of you as a child” upon which he projects his never-ending flow of ideas.
