Last Chance to See Unpopular Culture

Grayson Perry was catapulted into the public consciousness in 2003 when he won the Turner Prize for his delicate coil pots adorned with drawings and text suggesting a range of subject matter. Perhaps less well-known is Perry’s work as a curator.

The current Mead Gallery exhibition Unpopular Culture highlights this aspect of Perry’s practice and offers his personal view of the Arts Council Collection: one of the foremost national collections of British post-war art, with over 7,500 works.

The show includes works by; Kenneth Armitage; Frank Auerbach; Ian Berry; Anthony Caro; Lynn Chadwick; Barbara Hepworth; L.S. Lowry; Henry Moore, Paul Nash; Eduardo Paolozzi; John Piper; Tony Ray-Jones and Homer Sykes as well as two striking new works by Perry himself.

It runs at the Mead Gallery until Saturday 13 March as part of a national tour.

Unpopular Culture examines a period in history which Perry argues was ‘before British Art became fashionable.’

The exhibition of more than 70 works by 50 artists encompasses a variety of media, figurative painting, bronze sculpture and documentary photography. Spanning the era from the 1940s to Thatcherite Britain of the 1980s, the selection epitomises a time when we as a nation had a different sense of self, one less defined by interventions of television, mass media and digital communications.

Grayson Perry says: “The first time I trawled through the catalogues of the Collection I was drawn to these three distinct categories of art, which are bound together both by the period of their inception and their ineffable sense of mood; subtle, sensitive, lyrical and quiet in contrast to today when much art can seem like shouty advertisements for concepts or personalities. I also felt a need to confront the hackneyed version of the recent past that is the default mode of the nostalgia industry. Take the swinging sixties – this psychedelic, mini-driving, mini-skirt wearing, Beatles-loving supposed glory age which I suspect was really only enjoyed by a minority. This exhibition shows another side.”

The gallery is located above the cinema and is open from noon to 9pm Monday to Saturday. Admission is free.