Grayson Perry’s Brexit Vases Acquired by the V&A for “Britain’s Mantlepiece”

Image: Grayson Perry, Matching Pair, 2017, two ceramic vases. © Victoria and Albert

The Matching Pair vases by British artist and potter Grayson Perry go on permanent display inthe V&A’s world-famous Ceramics Galleries. Created in 2017 in response to the huge social and political rift caused by Brexit, each vase depicts supporters of Leave and Remain. This major acquisition from one of the UK’s most celebrated and popular artists goes on display to coincide with the date that Britain was originally scheduled to leave the EU. The works have been purchased with the support of the Ruddock Foundation for the Arts, V&A Members, Sarah Nichols, the William Brake Charitable Trust and an anonymous donor.

Grayson Perry, Matching Pair, 2017, two ceramic vases. © Victoria and Albert

Monumental in size, both stand at over a metre-tall and are decorated with sgraffito figures and transfer-printed images. The similarity of the Leave and Remain vases prompted their title, Matching Pair.

Perry took a new approach to the creative process of decorating the vases by crowdsourcing ideas, photographs and phrases via social media. Posting videos on Facebook and Twitter, he asked Leave and Remain voters to choose their favourite brands and colours, define Britishness, share pictures of their tattoos and send selfies. Both are finished in a blue glaze – the preferred colour of both sides.

Contributions from twenty-four members of the public on Brexit and Britishness feature, including: teapots, bacon and eggs, marmite, families by the seaside, walking the dog, and the pub. Alongside, pictures of Barack Obama, Gandhi, Shakespeare, Gary Lineker, Gina Miller and the late MP Jo Cox, logos for Waitrose and the NHS are displayed on the Remain vase. On the Leave vase are images of Nigel Farage, Winston Churchill, the Queen, and the Cadbury’s logo.The making of the work and the issues it addresses were explored in Channel 4’s 2017documentary, Grayson Perry: Divided Britain.

Alun Graves, Senior Curator of Ceramics, Sculpture and Metalwork, said: “Grayson Perry’s Matching Pair sees one of Britain’s greatest artists and social commentators addressing the most significant political event of our times. And it is appropriate that he has done so through images and ideas put forward by the wider public. It is absolutely fitting that the V&A has acquired these hugely important works, and we hope that people will come to our world-class Ceramics Galleries to see them, and to explore what they have to say about the Brexit debate.”

Grayson Perry, said: “I am so pleased that the V&A has acquired these pots. They were madecollaboratively with people from all walks of life, for Britain’s mantlepiece. They will lookmagnificent at the V&A, a museum I am very fond of, where they can be seen by anyone for free for years to come.

“I have always been wary of audience participation in art. But I thought it would be an interestingexperiment to crowdsource in this work. I first wanted to address what felt like a huge rift in British society, caused by something that no one seemed that bothered about a few years before the vote.

“Maybe it is a bit utopian to say: ‘We are in this together! We all have a shared identity!’ But you’ve got to start somewhere. It’s important to talk to people that we don’t necessarily agree with and listen to what they have to say. The two pots came out looking remarkably similar, which is a goodresult, for it shows that we all have much more in common than that which separates us.”

Perry’s Matching Pair vases will complement the V&A’s existing holdings of works by the artist, including an important early ceramic, My Heroes (1994), acquired in 2009, a pair of linocut self- portrait prints Mr and Mrs Perry (2006) and a glazed ceramic wall tile made for the exterior of A House for Essex (2015). The wall tile is currently on loan to Blackburn Museum to support theteaching of art, design and technology in secondary schools, as part of the V&A’s flagshipnational educational initiative DesignLab Nation.