contextual research for FMP

1. CONTEXTUAL
RESEARCH FMP
Madeleine Ross

2. Initial Ideas
• My initial ideas about the FMP, when I was approached with the idea of making the project for
an outside source and not just for me and my final grade, was really exciting especially it being
for an exhibition on an artist I respect and love so much! It was also nerve wracking, as I know
this will possibly be seen by many people, which can be a scary thing, however a motivating
thing to push me to create something good and interesting.
• Although I have followed Grayson Perry’s work in the past, I know little of the work fromThe
Pre-TherapyYears, his first works as a ceramic artist. It was interesting to look at his works
from many years ago now, and too see how much meaning even back then he put into his art,
and how the topics that he mixes into his art, were foundations solidified in his youth.
• I knew that Grayson Perry had a female alter ego as a “T Girl” named Claire, who has influenced
and featured in many of his works, and that a lot of the themes in his pieces surrounded
subjects such as social class, gender and masculinity, and identity. For my personal study essay
I looked specifically at things such as femininity and masculinity and how it has been presented
in the media, so I knew that a project surrounding these themes would certainly be something I
am interested in. I am excited to look more into Claire, and more into the works of Grayson
Perry and how it can influence my FMP project.

3. Grayson Perry
Grayson Perry (born 24 March 1960) is an English
contemporary artist, writer and broadcaster. He is known
for his ceramic vases, tapestries and cross-dressing, as
well as his observations of the contemporary arts scene,
and for dissecting British "prejudices, fashions and
foibles".Perry's vases have classical forms and are decorated in
bright colours, depicting subjects at odds with their
attractive appearance.
Perry frequently appears in public dressed as a woman, and he
has described his female alter-ego, "Claire"
Introduction to Perry’s 2017 exhibition
titledThe Most Popular Art Exhibition Ever
A good exhibition to look at as it shows many different
subjects such as masculinity, Brexit and popularity.
Shows different medium of art work and explains why
he chooses those mediums.
“I use the media as kind of a gorilla tactic to talk
about perhaps some of the more difficult elephants
in the room for our British society”
“One of my campaigns is to try widen the audience
for contemporary art.”
The Most PopularArt Exhibition Ever!, tackled one of
Perry’s central concerns: how contemporary art can
best address a diverse cross section of society.
Born into a working-class family, Perry was four years old when his
father,Tom, left home after discovering his mother, Jean, was
having an affair with a milkman, whom she later married and who
Perry has claimed was violent. Subsequently, he spent an unhappy
childhood moving between his parents and created a fantasy
world based around his teddy in order to cope with his sense of
anxiety. He considers that a person’s early experiences are
important in shaping their aesthetic and sexuality.

4. Grayson Perry- PreTherapyYears ExhibitionThe touring exhibition, developed by the Holburne Museum in
Bath, is the first to celebrate Grayson Perry’s earliest forays
into the art world and will re-introduce the explosive and
creative works he made between 1982 and 1994.
The exhibition will shine a light on Perry’s experimentation and
exploration of the potential of pottery to address radical issues and
human stories. Often challenging and explicit, these works reveal
the early development of Perry’s distinctive voice that has
established him as one of the most compelling commentators on
contemporary society.
The exhibition begins with Perry’s early collaged sketchbooks,
experimental films and sculptures, capturing his move into using
ceramics as his primary medium.
Grayson Perry:The Pre-TherapyYears begins in 1982, when Perry
was first working as an artist and then charts his progress to the mid-
90s, when he became established in the mainstream London art
scene.
Much of the iconography of Perry’s output has an angry, post-punk,
deeply ironic leaning, combining cosy imagery with shocking sexual
or political content.
Many of the works displayed in the Pre-Therapy
Years tell a very personal story, particularly in the
evolution of Claire, who first appeared in the early
80’s inspired by such powerful women as
television newsreaders and Princess Diana, rather
than the exuberant child-like figure Perry created
after her ‘coming out’ party in 2000.
When reviewing the proposed dates with the Holburne team, it was
Perry himself who described these as his “pre-therapy” years, as in 1998
he embarked on six years of psychotherapy, culminating in hisTurner
Prize win.
The subject matter of the show is dark, absurd and honest: the
kind of topics you’d discuss in a challenging counselling session. In
fact, it is arguable that these were his therapy years as it is
evident that he uses his art as a coping mechanism. Chris
Stephens agrees and suggests that the exhibition is a great
reflection of Perry “working things out”.
Perry made the decision to purposefully display subversive
motifs of violence and sex (amongst other equally
inappropriate icons) as a “reaction against the friendliness of
pottery.”
PIECESTO FOCUS ON

5. ReceptionTheory- Stuart Hall
 Stuart Hall developed his theory known as ReceptionTheory in 1973. His theory focuses on the encoding and decoding of content given to the audience
no matter the form of media, such as magazines,TV, radio and games.Today theorists who do the analysis of media through reception theory often
derive results from the experience of an audience created by watching a cinema, game or books.
• The reception theory concept points out that, a movie, book, or game events though it has none/some inherent meaning, the audience who watch
them or experience it make a meaning.
• ENCODING-The encoded messages usually contains shared rules and symbols common with other people. So the (encoder) sender has to think how
the receiver will perceive the message.
• DECODING- Decoding would be a successful delivery only if the message sent by the encoder is understood completely to its content as it was
intended.
• The messages sent with verbal/non-verbal cues and gestures don’t bring the same result always as intended by the sender, bringing an altogether
different meaning an insight to the concept sent.Thus, the distortion occurs when the audience cannot understand the concept of having a different
take on the conclusion itself.
• Distortion of meaning can happen due to factors such as:
• Age
• Gender
• Religion
• Race
• Class
• Dominant Reader:They are the audience who take in the work as given by the director which no extra notes attached.The perceive the meaning the
way the director intended fully.
• Negotiated Reader: Accepting the authors message and the meaning, however not completely agreeing with it.
• Oppositional Reader:The audience has none acceptance for the author’s takes on the concept of the film or the subject it handled. It can be morally
wrong, emotionally disturbing, unnecessary adult contents of violence and blood gore, religious belief, political outlooks etc., which will make the
audience, reject the idea.

6. MainThemes in Grayson Perry:The PreTherapyYears
The main themes that Perry explores in his works known asThe Pre-TherapyYears are social class, gender and
identity and ultimately how all these things effect each other.
(2) Grayson Perry meets
transgender fashion historian
EJ | BORN RISKY -YouTube
(2) Grayson Perry
meets transvestite
truck driver Geoff |
BORN RISKY -
YouTube
Masculinity andTransvestism
Masculinity is a theme that features
heavily in Grayson Perry's works,
and in his Pre-Therapy years, he
creates a foundation for the subjects
he would continue to explore for the
rest of his career, in ceramic art
works, and documentaries he has
directed, as well as in his bookThe
Decent of Man where he covers
masculinity for the entirety of the
prose.
From the way Grayson discusses
issues of masculinity, you can see
that he personally regards it as fluid,
but also something that keeps
people in a box, and doesn’t all you
to be expressive. He refers to the
term “don’t be a sissy” a lot,
suggesting that his overall outlook
on general masculinity, is about men
being tough and unemotional, but in
his works he challenges this.
In his interview with the trans male fashion historian, he discusses
how he felt more comfortable as an un-transitioned male inTokyo
Japan, due to the different standards of masculinity there in
contrast to inAustralia. He didn’t have to try so hard to look and act
as his gender over there.The art historian also states how the idea
of the male gaze and centre stage femininity petrified him, for
obvious reasons as a trans man, however it tells us something about
masculinity- it suggests that for him to transition and to be the right
gender, he had to reject everything feminine, to get as far from that
and as close to masculinity as possible. To be the epitome of
masculinity, or to even be called a man, he felt like he wasn’t
allowed to have an inch of femininity, which in the cases of
transvestites such as Grayson is different.They embrace femininity
but they aren’t complete rejecting the gender they identify they,
they also embrace the masculine too.

7. MainThemes in Grayson Perry:The PreTherapyYears
Transvestism in the 80’s/90’s
 Pop culture in the 1980’s made way for the new phase that was called the “gender bender” phase, where pop groups
such as Culture Club, fronted by Boy George, popularised the idea of gender fluidity and cross dressing.
 With his unique style of cross dressing and white soul music such as Karma Chameleon, this helped interest build up
around the band, although they weren’t seeking to be controversial, as the notion of a man dressing as a woman was
something unheard off at the time in the music industry.
 However, with George being the pioneer of this movement this opened the doors for others to follow suit and by the
end of the 1980s it was almost accepted as part of the norm which then doesn't have its same flamboyancy and edge.
 New artists that walked through this door of openly cross dressing, were artists such as Marylin, Pete Burns, and
lastly Divine an American who enjoyed an international hit via Stock AitkenWaterman production skills with 'you
think your a man' who then sadly at the peak of his high energy disco sound died.

8. The Male Gaze- Laura Mulvey Mulvey states that “the gender power asymmetry is a controlling force in cinema
and constructed for the pleasure of the male viewer, which is deeply rooted in
patriarchal ideologies and discourses.”
 This means that the male viewer is the target audience, therefore their needs are
met first and that this problem stems from an old fashioned, male-driven society.
 Mulvey believes that women are in fact “the bearer of meaning and not the
maker of meaning,” which suggests that women are not placed in a role where
they can take control of a scene, instead they are simply put there to be observed
from an objectified point of view.
 The Male Gaze theory, in a nutshell, is where women in the media are viewed
from the eyes of a heterosexual man, and that these women are represented as
passive objects of male desire. Audiences are forced to view women from the
point of view of a heterosexual male, even if they are heterosexual women or
homosexual men.
 The Male Gaze suggests that the female viewer must experience the narrative
secondarily, by identification with the male.
 Not only is the Male Gaze theory relevant to cinema, but it also correlates with
every-day life. Some theorists have noted that in advertising, objectification and
sexualised portrayals of the female body can be found even in situations where
sex or representations of sex have nothing to do with the product being
advertised.

9. MainThemes in Grayson Perry:The PreTherapyYears
Masculinity in 80’s UK
 Masculinity in the lateTwentieth Century, in the US as well as in the UK, was going through something of a crisis.
 (90’s)America prompted a second look at a generation of men who lacked the participation and camaraderie of
some heroic war or great artistic movement like their parents before them (the Greatest Generation).
 Masculinity was also going through a major crisis in the UK, the 80’s and early 90’s the era ofThatcher, mass
unemployment, the closing of many “emasculating” jobs in industry such as the steel works and mining.
 The film Billy Elliott is a good example of just how hard it was to be working class and male during the 1980’s,
living in a time during unemployment and some of the most violent and damming strikes the UK had ever seen.
 The striking miners faced off against police forces backed byThatcher’s government, in clashes that often turned
violent.The stakes were high on both sides: Scargill compared the strike to Britain’s fight against Nazi Germany,
whileThatcher viewed it as an opportunity to crush militant labour unions for good.
 The strikes displayed the obvious outrage and anger towards the pits closures, but it also displayed a certain
degree of masculinity, in the violence caused during the time, and the profane loss of male tradition in the
removal off industry.

10. MainThemes in Grayson Perry:The PreTherapyYears
Social Class in the 1980’s
 The last 30 years have seen profound political, economic and social changes in Britain. What it means to be in a particular social
class now is not necessarily the same as it was three decades ago.
 66% of people say that a person’s class affects their opportunities “a great deal” or “quite a lot”.This proportion has not changed
substantially since 1983 when 70% thought class affected an individual’s opportunities.
 Although a higher proportion of people are classed as lower middle class/ middle class in 2020, class is still something of a
stigma, however it is more subtle and less obvious than it may have been 30 years ago.
 In 1984 measures of social class such as economic status, socio-economic group and income level had strong correlations with
both welfare and liberal attitudes. For example, lower socio-economic groups were more likely to support increased government
taxation and spending, and to be less liberal on issues such as sex before marriage.
 In these early years of MargaretThatcher’s first Conservative government, class politics were clearly evident, with the Labour
Party moving dramatically to the left and the trade union movement seeking to resist government policy, as became apparent in
the miners’ strikes in 1984 and 1985.
 In the 1980s groups concerned with world poverty, disability discrimination and individual and human rights became important.
These social movements are still important, although feminism has lost some of its impetus and the gay community have
achieved many of their objectives.

11. Contextual Statement

12. Contextual Statement• After creating a small mind map, I can now visibly and clearly see the directions my thoughts have been going in, and what I
have been focussing on.
• I have always been interested in the past, events that have taken place, so doing research into the state of the UK during the
times Grayson Perry was creating his pieces in the exhibition, was a great way to understand what the thoughts, values and
ideas of the British public were back in the 1980’s specifically.
• I have always known that 80s Britain under Thatcher's government was a tough time for the British people, for masculinity, for
the north of the uk, for industry, but I never really knew to such extent.
• It is something that has effected many people, and a part of recent history that almost all of the older generations remember,
weather it negatively effected them or not.
• In my mind map, I found myself drawn to this topic ofThatcher's government in the 80’s and thinking about how it may have
affected the idea of masculinity, how the ideas of “gender bending” and transvestism started to become more accepted, but
also how the need for “real men” the need for men of industry will have affected these times and the people growing and
working. Although things were slowly becoming more progressive, more progressive than things had been since the 60’s and
70’s, Thatcher brought in the idea of tradition, and although being the first female prime minister, misogynistic and entrapping
ideals.
• In my project, I would love to explore how young people, specifically people just moving into the workplace, discovering their
identities and questioning their genders and seeing new ideas of cross dressing, how that may have impacted individuals.
• I think mental health is also something important to look at.With ideas of transvestism, and the immense amount of
unemployment during the 1980’s, mental health can and would have been strained! People will have been trying to get out of
one box and put into another. How could young people grow and develop as individuals and experiment, in such a time that
made it seem impossible to do so?
• Although this isn’t the main topic of Grayson Perry’s ideas in the works of his PreTherapyYears, these no doubt will all have
had an indirect effect on him, and influenced his work.

13. Bibliography
 Dr Helen Walsh . (2020). Grayson Perry: The Pre Therapy Years Exhibition 2021. Available:
https://www.yorkartgallery.org.uk/exhibition/grayson-perry-the-pre-therapy-years/. Last accessed 07/01/2021.
 ".". (2017). Grayson Perry: The Most Popular Art Exhibition Ever!. Available: https://www.serpentinegalleries.org/whats-on/grayson-perry-
most-popular-art-exhibition-ever/. Last accessed 07/01/2021.
 Sapphi Littleton . (2020). Grayson Perry: The Pre Therapy Years . Available: https://www.artefactmagazine.com/2020/01/24/grayson-perry-
the-pre-therapy-years/. Last accessed 07/01/2021.
 Channel 4 . (2016). Grayson Perry meets transgender fashion historian EJ | BORN RISKY. Available:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uPtBpV4Kz6w&t=80s. Last accessed 08/01/2021.
 Channel 4 . (2016). Grayson Perry meets transvestite truck driver Geoff | BORN RISKY. Available:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s2lh3pazKsM. Last accessed 08/01/2021.
 Barry Killgannon . (2013). Gender Cross Dressing in the 1980's. Available: http://80smusicrevisited.blogspot.com/2013/01/gender-cross-
dressing-in-1980s.html. Last accessed 08/01/2021.
 Sarah Pruitt. (2020). When Margaret Thatcher Crushed a British Miners’ Strike. Available: https://www.history.com/news/margaret-thatcher-
miners-strike-iron-lady. Last accessed 08/01/2021.
 NatCen Social Research . (2013). Social class The role of class in shaping social attitudes. Available:
https://www.bsa.natcen.ac.uk/media/38459/bsa30_social_class_final.pdf#:~:text=Over%20the%20last%2030%20years%2C%20the%20atti
tudes%20of,strong%20correlations%20with%20both%20welfare%20and%20liberal%20a. Last accessed 08/01/2021.
 ".". ("."). Why have social movements become more important in the UK?. Available: https://www.britpolitics.co.uk/a-level-politics-interest-
groups-social-movement-important/. Last accessed 08/01/2021
 .". (2020). Reception Theory. Available: https://www.communicationtheory.org/reception-theory/. Last accessed 11/01/2021.
 The Media Insider . (2017). Stuart Hall Reception Theory Explained . Available: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6xh9FjcQTWE. Last
accessed 11/01/2021.
 Rachael Sampson . (2015). Laura Mulvey: The Male Gaze Theory. Available: https://www.filminquiry.com/film-theory-basics-laura-mulvey-
male-gaze-theory/. Last accessed 11/01/2021.