The Turner Prize winning artist presents his defiant new ceramic pot.
Acclaimed potter Grayson Perry has been included alongside a number of well-known artists to create work from the ashes of Glasgow School of Art’s Mackintosh building, which was ravished by fire back in 2014.
Following on from the incident, which also destroyed hundreds of students degree work, debris from the devastated library was send to 25 internally renowned artist include Sir Peter Blake, Jake and Dinos Chapman, Cornelia Parker, Anish Kapoor, Anthony Gormley and David Shrigley, who were instructed to incorporate the materials in new unique artwork.
All the works will be auctioned off by Christie’s in March to help raise the £13.5m required to fully rebuild the legendary Mackintosh-designed building. The newly restored building is set to reopen in spring 2019.
Grayson Perry, who has made an earthenware urn adorned with the words "Art is dead. Long live Art", explains: "It's a tragedy. It's the most famous art school building in Britain. It's also the masterpiece of Mackintosh. It's a double tragedy.
"I was very excited when I received the box of charcoal. I had an idea almost immediately and the idea of making an urn was an obvious thing to do. The idea of memorialising or celebrating the difficulty - honouring the wound."
"It's something I'm trying to do. Move on and make the most of it. I really like the idea of using the charcoal from the fire. I thought it was very clever. It's also fresh - it's not something that has come up before.” - Grayson Perry
