Grayson Perry

Numbered 38 from the edition of 68, with a further 12 artist’s proofs. Signed by the artist and numbered on the reverse. Published by Paragon Press, London.

Created in 2020, The American Dream developed from Grayson Perry’s travels while filming Grayson Perry’s Big American Road Trip. Against the backdrop of the American presidential election, the project explored race, class and identity through encounters across the United States. This monumental etching translates those observations into a satirical map, presenting a nation whose divisions are cultural and emotional as much as geographical.

Across the expansive sheet, aircraft, ships and directional arrows transform the map into a crowded theatre of conflict. Political concerns and competing identities become combatants, while the figure of Mark Zuckerberg presides over the scene. Perry draws upon the visual language of Cold War propaganda maps, adapting their urgent symbolism to the struggles of an era shaped by social media.

The map examines how online platforms channel anxiety and anger into opposing positions. Its military imagery gives tangible form to exchanges that take place largely through screens. Geography offers the promise of orientation, yet the accumulation of labels and competing movements frustrates any straightforward reading. The viewer encounters a landscape in which information proliferates without necessarily producing understanding.

The title introduces a tension between collective aspiration and social fragmentation. Read in this context, the American dream becomes a contested ideal rather than a shared destination. Perry’s combination of meticulous detail, humour and disorientation invites sustained scrutiny, encouraging viewers to consider both the positions they recognise and their own participation in the conflicts represented.

A detailed condition report is available upon request.