The
Vanity Of Small Differences

The tapestries were produced on the occasion of Perry’s 2012 solo show for Victoria Miro, London, and were intended as an extension of his three tv programmes, All In The Best Possible Taste With Grayson Perry, which the artist hosted on Channel 4. In the programme, Perry went on a “safari amongst the tribes of Britain” to gather data on different social classes and investigate the dynamics of contemporary taste, namely how each class resorts to different consumer symbols to show or elevate their wealth and social status. The artist then proceeded to weave the stories and characters within his works. In an interview, the artist declared “Ever since I was a child I have been very aware of the visual environment people build around themselves … When I got older, I wanted to decode their choices. Why do middle-class people love organic food and recycling? Why does the owner of a castle and 6,000 acres wear a threadbare tweed jacket? People seem to be curating their possessions to communicate consciously, or more often unconsciously, where they want to fit into society.”

As the artist recounts, the tapestries draw from William Hogarth’s A Rake’s Progress to narrate a “story of social mobility”, characterised by the social ascension of the main character, Tim Rakewell, as he moves through the social strata of modern Britain, from a working-class boy to a computer softer millionaire. In each tapestry, Tim is represented with the distinctive consumer symbols of each social class. In the first tapestry, we see Tim as a baby sitting on his mother’s knee, while two kneeling characters offer him a Sunderland football shirt and a miner’s lamp, representative of Tim’s social and economic background. In the second tapestry, Tim’s mother kneels in adoration looking at Tim’s stepfather as he is getting promoted to call centre manager. Tim’s journey and ascension continue in the next tapestries, until he becomes a well-established owner of a lucrative software company, becoming a member of the well-to-do rich upper-class. In the last scene, Tim dies in a car accident while driving his Ferrari, the ultimate symbol of his wealth but ironically also the cause of his death. 

The tapestries thus offer a sarcastic, dark-humorous commentary on the cultural investment in objects and class, suggesting how the societal investment in materialistic goods not only reflects different socio-economic backgrounds but is also the main vehicle through which people display their ambitions to wealth and economic power: “I am interested in the politics of consumerism, I focus on the emotional investment we make in the things we choose to live with, wear, eat, read or drive.” Rather than celebrating consumer culture as it stands, as his predecessors did, Perry dissects the dynamics of modern consumerism and offers a sharp, satirical and ironic commentary on the modern-day obsession with materialism and wealth-display.

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