Delivering his third talk in the Reith Lecture series, Grayson Perry contemplates whether contemporary art still has the power to shock. He delivers his lecture called ‘Nice Rebellion, Welcome In!’ in a lively, entertaining style with no stuffiness, but don’t be fooled he is seriously questioning the importance of sincerity in our postmodern, ironic world. Available to listen to at http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03f9bg7
Art Fund 2004

Site-specific sculpture at Broadgate, London.
Of his own debut into the world of contemporary art Grayson Perry had wanted to shock and had wanted to announce, “You’re the old people who made rusty metal sculptures we are the new people who are making this sort of work!”, but it had all been done. Talking of rusty metal, Richard Serra springs to mind and particularly for me, as by chance, my sister and I looked around ‘Fulcrum’ a couple of weeks ago. Richard Serra has been disturbing space and us with his enormous rusting steel sculptures since the early 1970s. His site-specific work nowadays may still be called challenging and is sometimes controversial due its sheer size, in this case 55 feet/16.8 metres of rusting steel, but it does not shock. More of Serra’s smaller scale work can be seen at
http://www.saatchigallery.com/aipe/richard_serra.htm
Through the course of the lecture Grayson Perry develops the idea that art is in its end game and although there will always be new work it is only ‘tweaking’ a past idea. And, he suggests that what will separate out the good artist will not be all the postmodern knowing and cynicism attached to their work, but the artist’s sincere intent in its creation. Finally, as a parting shot Grayson commented that a contemporary art work could possibly shock by being beautiful!
Here are a couple of pieces of ageing metal, both functional, one’s a flagpole and one’s a hot water cylinder. Beautiful? Art?
Challenging perspectives are always so thought provoking – thanks for sharing.
Thanks for comment. A little bit of thinking is always good exercise for the brain and listening to a Grayson Perry lecture is like a long country walk – charming, good for you and with lots of fresh air.
Much food for thought here. I enjoy a mild shock sometimes (artistically speaking, that is) but what I love most is a sweet surprise, or a riddle, or to simply enjoy the endless forms the human imagination takes. Thank you for visiting my blog and commenting.
Your welcome. I have enjoyed seeing photographs of your work. I agree with you about the expansive nature of human imagination and I am also surprised by the sheer scale of some artists’ work – usually in a pleasant way.