Grayson Perry: Tomb of the Unknown Craftsman

Moving installation at the British Museum by Grayson Perry.

This work was originally produced for an exhibition at the museum which I annoyingly managed to miss, so I was really pleased to get another chance to at least see this work. It is an iron boat embossed and hung with replicas of items in the museum as a memorial to all the people who made them whose names are mainly forgotten to history. The vials on the piece represent the blood, sweat and tears which went into making these valued objects.

I loved that this work was shown in front of the reconstruction of the ancient Greek Nereid monument, an imposing façade. Perry’s work held it’s own and could be seen as soon as your entered the large room, although in the current one way system you had to wait to emerge from the Parthenon Frieze before you could get close and see the details.

Review

Evening Standard


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