Exhibition — Nov 19 until Dec 30, 2003

New acquisitions from the British artist Grayson Perry (b. 1960) are to be seen in the display cabinets on the ground floor of the Stedelijk Museum.

Perry won this year the prestigious Turner Prize at the Tate, thanks to the exhibition ‘Guerrilla Tactics’ which the Stedelijk organised last year, which was subsequently to be seen at the Barbican Art Gallery in London.

Perry is controversial for the subjects that he raises with his work, and the media in which he works them out. On closer inspection his beautifully decorated ceramics shock with the gruesome scenes that he applies to them with incised drawings, photo transfers and other techniques, dealing with hypocrisy, sex, violence, machismo and child abuse.

Last year Perry presented the Museum with his twelve-piece ‘Gulf War Dinner Service’ (1991), in which he provides a cynical commentary on the (first) Gulf War. There is also a quilt on display, embroidered with a pattern of phalluses.

Together with the new acquisitions from Perry, teapots, tea warmers, flatware, canisters and storage tins by the metal artist Jan Eisenloeffel (1876-1957) from the collection are being shown, along with a drawing by Leo Gestel from which one can see how such modern tableware was extremely popular among young, progressive couples just under a century ago.