Up close with Richard Grayson
About Richard Grayson
Born 1958 in Morcambe, England
Lives and works in London, England
Richard Grayson is an artist, writer and curator based in London. Grayson’s photographs, textbased works, drawings and large video installations blend humour, curiosity and a deep thoughtfulness about the way the world works. Messiah (2004) is based on George Frideric Handel’s well known 1742 oratorio, The Messiah. With the help of Australian country and western band The Midnight Amblers, Grayson transforms Charles Jennens’ original text into a spirited, country rock performance with scary fundamentalist overtones, effectively recalling it from the ‘high culture’ of choirs and classical recitals into a hoe-down offering that brings to mind the Christian Right of the United States. The resulting video, shown over two screens, refers to the revival of religious rhetoric in political policy. By injecting the ‘spiritual’ into contemporary art – anathema to the modern, secular rationalism of the twentieth century – the artist provokes consideration of the many different spaces or cultures in which unquestioning group beliefs exist.