Poverty

Artist Grayson Perry (British, born 1960)

Date2000

DimensionsH: 34 1/4 in. (87 cm); W: 13 3/8 in. (34 cm); Depth: 13 3/8 in. (34 cm)

MediumGlazed earthenware.

ClassificationCeramics

Credit LineMuseum Purchase, by exchange

Object number

2006.148

Not on View

Label TextA lot of my work has always had a guerrilla tactic, a stealth tactic. I want to make something that lives with the eye as a beautiful piece of art, but on closer inspection, a polemic or an ideology will come out of it. Drawn to the meticulous craft of pottery, British artist Grayson Perry deliberately challenges and subverts our expectations of the traditional decorative beauty of a vase. Using a photo-transfer technique, he densely covered the surface of his Poverty vase with overlapping images of old-fashioned patterned wallpaper and photographs—some of them disturbing—of working class British neighborhoods and their inhabitants. The result paradoxically blends beauty with ugly social realities. Grayson does not necessarily see any contradiction in this combination: “It [beauty] needs to have some grit in it. Part of beauty is to challenge. People often look at my stuff and say, ‘Why does it have to be shocking?’ But I think that's what makes contemporary art beautiful. You have to work a bit to like it.”