Exhibition #3

Whereas last year's iteration of the Museum of Everything was a fairly straightforward, if utterly captivating, survey of some of the world's best outsider art, its current edition is simultaneously a statement of cultural insider-ness - the entire display having been co-curated by, and predominantly drawn from the personal collection of, Sir Peter Blake.

The result is a fascinating cornucopia. Many pieces - as you might expect from this most studiously parochial of pop artists - stem from British folk traditions, such as a gorgeously grotesque assortment of Punch and Judy puppets; or evoke circus and music-hall history, from the hundreds of photographs of Victorian performing midgets, through to huge, hysterically-painted promotional banners ('World's Fattest Man', 'Dog and Monkey Hotel'). But there are also more recherché or whimsical items: Indonesian-style shadow puppets; cutesy creatures made from seashells; a Disney-designed room-screen.

Apparently, this is all only a selection of what fills Blake's studio - he's clearly an omnivorous collector. Occasionally, though, this presents problems. With too many objects arrayed together, any sense of typology - which is, after all, the primary point of collecting, as a way of probing and analysing material culture - sometimes gets lost, as with the confusing excesses of the dolls vitrine.
But this is a niggling complaint.

In the end, what makes the show successful is its sheer, overwhelming strangeness, particularly when the focus is on one manufacturer: most obviously, the macabre Victoriana of Walter Potter. These anthropomorphic animals, which put the whole slew of contemporary taxidermy artists to shame, also chime with the mesmerisingly trippy, erotic embroideries of Ted Wilcox and the intricate variety of fairground-art by the Carter family of carnies. Ultimately, the entire exhibition conveys a wondrous sense of the carnivalesque - not simply in terms of the objects' provenance, but as a spectacular celebration of the diversity and eccentricity of British visual culture.