Grayson Perry - Tomb of the Unknown Craftsman at British Museum

Grayson Perry - Tomb of the Unknown Craftsman at British Museum

05 October, 2011
by: Tom Jeffreys

Tom Jeffreys is sorely disappointed by Grayson Perry's rummage through the archives of the British Museum.

What is the point of a museum? That is the question that I'm left with after visiting the Grayson Perry-curated The Tomb of the Unknown Craftsman, which opens this week at the British Museum. For me, a museum is a resource of knowledge, a place where artefacts are examined and classified and analysed and put on display for the education and edification of its visitors. It is the bridge between academia and the public, a conduit for the dissemination of specialist knowledge.

Of course any museums can also function in other capacities – as source of inspiration, as repository of beauty, as sanctuary of calm – but without that core of academic knowledge, it simply becomes one place among others in which to spend one's time. The cinema, the pub, the playground, and the department store can all serve these auxiliary functions just as well.

And that is the problem with Grayson Perry's exhibition. There are others, but this is the key one. Perry has been given the run of the British Museum collections, in order to put together an exhibition that explores ideas of magic, ritual, sexuality, spirituality and, above all, craftsmanship. It's all very admirable that he acknowledges his lack of academic credentials, the deeply personal nature of the objects on show, and the absence of intellectual unifying thread. “I'm a bit mad,” he tells the assembled journalists at the media view, “and the exhibition is basically a short tour through my head.” But the effect is to reduce what's on show to a simple procession of stuff, without meaning or context.

Or to be more precise, the meaning and context are so bound up with Perry's own life and work as to leave little room for the visitor. Every object relates more or less directly to Perry himself in a move that could seem narcissistic, but is mainly just a little bit boring. The inclusion of lots of works by Perry – pots, tapestries, a drawing and several large-scale sculptural pieces – as well as a host of nonsense about his teddy bear, Alan Measles, is supposed to underline the personal nature of Perry's selections, and in that sense it succeeds. It forces the visitor to try and view the world through Perry's own eyes – “I invite you to view these artefacts by reading them through my lens,” he writes in the introductory spiel. The only trouble is it's a not altogether an enjoyable experience; and it's certainly a very limiting one. 



All of which is a shame, as many of the objects on display are delightful. In particular, two portable Japanese wood and lacquer shrines – one from the 1920s and one from 1700s; an 1850 ivory model of a cult-like Siberian summer camp; illustrations of torture methods from the seventeenth century;  an exquisitely detailed map based on John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress; a great image of a cabinet maker formed out of thetools of his trade, by Gerard Valck; and, most intriguing of all, an undated Bali figure made by the Bamana people of West Africa. Made of clay and mud, it looks like a kind of truncated or ill-gestated bull – all power, vague heft and mystery.

The problem is that I would like to know more about this strange, anonymous beast, but there's nothing other than Perry's own response to it. I'm often the first to complain about an excess of explanatory text: works should speak for themselves, rather than being subsumed under an overarching curatorial narrative. But here, if anything, the effect is the opposite – instead of   informing us about these works, Perry simply emphasises their exoticism, a trick that quickly becomes both repetitive and frustrating.

The other element of note here, of course, is the large amount of Perry's own work on show, some of which was produced especially for the exhibition. I'm personally not a huge fan, as I don't feel there's been all that much development over the years, but that's not necessarily a problem. And his central work – The Tomb of the Unknown Craftsman – is unquestionably a piece of great vision and visual impact.

If you were being cynical though you could regard the whole project as an attempt by Perry to position himself alongside the great craftsmen of history, to validate his work through reference to the cultures of the past. I'm disinclined to do that as he's always seemed a decent fellow, but still, there's something a little unsavoury about the whole thing. Perry's obsession with the importance of his own personal response actually prevents one from responding in any personally meaningful way oneself. It's a fairly damning indictment that for probably the first time in my life I leave the British Museum having learnt nothing.

Grayson Perry - The Tomb of the Unknown Craftsman is at the British Museum from 6th October 2011 to 19th February 2012.

Read Tom's interview with Grayson Perry, March 2010.

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The Tomb of the Unknown Craftsman, Grayson Perry, 2011. Cast by Tom Crompton and Bjorn Fiskvaten; glassblowing by Mark Taylor and David Hill. Edition 3 plus 1 artist's proof. Copyright Grayson Perry, courtesy of the Artist and Victoria Miro Gallery, London. Photo: Stephen White

Tom Jeffreys