Review: Grayson Perry’s joyous, contemplative retrospective ‘Smash Hits’

Turner prize-winning artist Grayson Perry’s ‘Smash Hits’ retrospective at the National Galleries of Scotland (Royal Scottish Academy) is a colourful and provocative exhibition, diverse in media and subject matter. Chronicling a journey of self-understanding, identity-forming, and culture-observing, it navigates the line between the personal and the universal, with Perry endowing fictional characters and Gods with predicaments and traumas drawn from his own life experiences. Undeniably autobiographical, yet resonant with broader social issues, the show is simultaneously introspective while casting its gaze outward.

Gods and alter-egos

One of the most interesting aspects of this exhibition is the selection of fictional Gods, alter-egos, characters, and icons that Perry portrays with various issues, identities, and personas. The most prevalent is Perry’s childhood teddy bear, Alan Measles, who has been depicted almost countless times as a God.

In the first room of the exhibition, the viewer is confronted with a large red teddy bear on skyscraper stilts, wielding hand grenades and a gun. This tapestry, ‘Vote Alan Measles for God’, exemplifies the satirical tone of the exhibition: Perry takes the heavy starting points of Afghan war rugs and over-powerful politicians and twists them into a light-hearted, humorous, and aesthetically pleasing tapestry.

Our cultural and religious beliefs

In Alan’s casting as the Virgin Mary in ‘Alan Healing the Wound’, however, he becomes an icon we are almost expected to worship. The bronze cast of the teddy bear cradling a child is beautifully intricate and skilfully rendered, but also absurd in how convincing it is as a religious icon. Unlike the tapestry’s light-hearted mockery, this Alan icon feels eerily akin to actual religious objects. This perhaps asks the viewer to reflect on the fickle nature of human cultural and religious beliefs. In the exhibition’s caption for this piece, Perry admits that he elevated Alan Measles to a God-like icon because of his want for ready-to-go subject matter. This is one of the many moments in this exhibition where we are confronted head-on with the artist’s humanity; despite being so prolific and successful he still admits to the occasional block of inspiration.  

Photo 1 - Sir Grayson Perry. Sacred Tribal Artefact, 2023. Tapestry 200 x 350 cm78 3/4 x 137 3/4 in © Grayson Perry. Courtesy the artist, Paragon | Contemporary Editions Ltd and Victoria Miro; Photo 2 - Sir Grayson Perry. 
Our Town, 2022. Etching109 x 161 cm42 ⅞ × 63 ⅜ in Edition of 68 plus 2 artist’s proofs © Grayson Perry. Courtesy the artist, Paragon | Contemporary Editions Ltd and Victoria Miro

Exploring class mobility through Tim Rakewell

Another character fated to live at the hands of Perry is Tim Rakewell. In one of the artist’s most well-known works, ‘The Vanity of Small Differences’, Tim is dragged through the trials of class mobility, working his way up the ranks until his overambition and foolish strive for commodity cause his downfall. The six tapestries are based on religious artworks from the Renaissance, a choice Perry made partially to give them a historical grounding, and partially, as he jokes in the exhibition’s audio guide, to mock the smugness middle-class viewers would feel upon recognising the Renaissance references.

The series takes over a room in the exhibition, immersing the viewer in Tim’s quasi-Renaissance rise and fall. The tapestries are in Perry’s signature colourful palette, peppered with cultural references. In them, Tim is placed in several character roles, the most poignant of them being Jesus Christ. In the first tapestry, baby Tim is held on his mother’s lap, reminiscent of the Virgin and Child, and he reaches for his mother’s phone. In the final tapestry, Tim lies dead in a gutter after crashing his car while speeding, held by a woman in a blue dress, mirroring Christ’s lamentation in Rogier van der Weyden’s work of the same name. At the bottom of the last tapestry is a smashed iPhone, replacing a memento mori skull. In making Tim Rakewell echo Christ, Perry establishes a universal order of events in the series of tapestries. Tim died at the hands of his greed, the work perhaps serving as a warning against overambition and hubris, while simultaneously mocking all stages of the English class system.