Whilst filming the Channel 4 series Perry travelled around Britain to the places , events and social rituals which would reveal the reasons why we make – both consciously and unconsciously – emotional investments in the things we choose to live with , wear , eat , read or drive .
Cafetières & Le Creuset : An observation on the middle class of Kent
As someone originally from a working class background , but now living in middle class Islington , Perry is fascinated by social mobility and the rise of a new middle class . " This is the class that are most aware of the meaning and status of the things that they buy ... they ' re ( the ) most self-conscious ..." says Perry .
He begins his journey in Kent ’ s Kings Hill , a new development of executive housing between Maidstone and Tonbridge . He finds a world of aspirational , brand-led taste , with people keen to define themselves from the working-class tastes they have left behind , but uncertain what new taste signals to send out .
Reflecting on his visit Perry explains : “ When we were filming the series , one of the encounters that most haunted me was with Jayne Newman , who lived on a new housing development … I wanted to talk to her because she had bought one of the show flats , fully furnished and decorated by the developer . When she moved in , it even had a bathrobe that the interior decorator had chosen hanging on the back of the bathroom door . She had decided to give up a right seen as sacred by the most middle-class people , the right to express one ’ s individuality through one ’ s home . The few items she had added to the flat fitted in seamlessly . She said she had bought it because there was so much choice out there and she had a fear of getting it wrong . The show flat had been kitted out in an okay style : neutral tones , unfussy sofas , bland knick-knacks . On
The Annunciation of the Virgin Deal ( detail ), Grayson Perry , 2012
her own she might have made a hash of it – she might have , God forbid … bad taste ! This was a revelation to me . I had spent a lifetime enjoying control over my aesthetic choices , revelling in it ; here was someone admitting to a wholesale avoidance of such decisions .”
Perry believes middle class Britons to be those most acutely self-conscious about what their taste decisions say about themselves . One of the tapestries inspired by Grayson ’ s visit to Kent , The Annunciation of the Virgin Deal , includes all the everyday essentials – from the cafetière and organic vegetables on the table to the Le Creuset sitting on the Aga – which have been amassed to align the household to a particular “ taste tribe ”. Grayson finds that , for all the differences between the many middle class " taste tribes " he meets , there is a common emotional undercurrent : a burning desire to show what good people they are . For the middle classes in particular , taste is a deeply moral issue .
Class on the other hand is something bred into us like religious faith . Politicians may talk of a classless society , but Perry believes it still thrives . It is certainly true that people from varying backgrounds may now identify themselves as middle class , but they are still likely separated by a gulf of taste ; as a personal example Perry writes : “ A childhood spent marinating in the material culture of one ’ s class means taste is soaked right through you . Cut me and , beneath the thick crust of Islington , it still says ‘ Essex ’ all the way through .”
Visitors to the exhibition are likely to see themselves in any one of the tapestries and cringe . However , there is a sense of fun threaded into each piece . As Caroline Douglas , Head of Arts Council Collection writes : “ Perry conceived this artwork to surreptitiously poke we Brits in the ribs , and remind us of our endearing pretensions , our prideful weaknesses and , most essentially , our ability to laugh at ourselves .” So whatever your perception of your own personal class and taste , we can all agree the ability to laugh at oneself is a unifying characteristic of being unequivocally British .
The Annunciation of the Virgin Deal , Grayson Perry , 2012
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