The biggest ever exhibition of the cross-dressing knight’s work, Grayson Perry: Smash Hits (until Nov 12) encompasses over eighty works covering the artist’s 40-year career, from his evening classes in pottery (including his earliest plate, Kinky Sex, made in 1983) to winning the Turner Prize to presenting TV programmes. Perry explores themes such as masculinity, sexuality, class, religion, politics and identity through subversive pots, intricate prints, elaborate sculptures and huge tapestries – all imbued with his sharp wit and social commentary. Two rooms centre on the monumental tapestry series Vanity of Small Differences (2012), loosely based on William Hogarth’s A Rake’s Progress, and the House for Essex tapestries (2015), which explore the life of a fictional Essex woman named Julie Cope. New works made in the past few months especially for the exhibition include plates and pots on themes of national identity, the latter in the form of medieval beer flagons.
