Grayson Perry - Ceramicist HARDtalk


Grayson Perry - Ceramicist

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Now on BBC News, HARDtalk.

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My guest says it started

as a joke, a fantasy he had.

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That he, a transvestite potter,

would have an exhibition among

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the ancient treasures

of the British Museum.

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But that is exactly what he did.

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Grayson Perry, welcome to HARDtalk.

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Grayson Perry, welcome to HARDtalk.

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It is a very unlikely mix of modern

art at the British museum.

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Why did you want to do it?

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I had a track record

of doing exhibitions here.

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It is quite sporadic.

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A predecessor in 1985

exhibitions, which he did

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with a collection at the Museum

of Mankind, which I saw

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as a recent graduate.

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So I knew that such

things were possible.

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The proposal was that you had

The Tomb of the Unknown Craftsman.

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Yes.

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The idea was, it was going to be

a mixture of my work,

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as a representative of a fantasy

civilisation, one I had in my head,

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and a celebration of the anonymous

craftsmen throughout history.

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Of course that was a poignant thing.

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I did not realise until I finished

that one of the most interesting

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thing about the title

is that it is a counterpart

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to the world where I come from,

where the identity of the maker

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is the most significant thing.

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It could be any old piece of tat

but when it has a name applied

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to it, it becomes valuable.

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A Leonardo da Vinci or Damien Hirst

is only worth a huge amount of money

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if they it's been

confirmed they made it.

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Most of the things in this

exhibition, we do not know

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who made them.

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I read you wore your magic robe

whenever you went to the museum?

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There is an internal logic

about my own civilisation.

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I am mischievous about it. I am

playing with it.

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The idea that I have my teddy bear

as the God of my civilisation.

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At first, it was just quite funny.

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Quickly, I realised it had legs.

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It could run.

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You chose things you liked?

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Yes.

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That is not a trivial

thing, what you like.

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People would dismiss it...

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Why I was given the opportunity

was because of who I am,

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I am a professional intuiter.

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You were alongside

experts in the museum.

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That must be a strange business.

Here you are, a professional Intuit

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and asking them to explain objects

to you.

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How did they respond?

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Brilliantly.

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They are interested

in showing their stuff.

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An opportunity to dig in the nether

regions of the collection

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was lovely for them.

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You ended up with 170

objects from the museum.

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There were 30 of your

own pieces of art.

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One of the first things you see

when you come into the exhibition,

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is the line 'Do not look too

hard for meaning here'.

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Do you mean that?

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What I mean is, people are allowed

to make up their own mind.

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Sometimes this huge institution

is a generator of meaning,

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something that it looks

for all the time.

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The experts want to interpret

everything, and give

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very detailed labels.

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I was aware of that,

going around with the curators.

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They live or die by the accuracy

of the information.

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Or the agreed accuracy of the

information.

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Even the meanings they put

to things are often guesses,

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or fluid, or their projections.

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Modern projections onto the past...

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"That's because of that".

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But it might be rubbish.

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What I want people to do

is scrutinise the information

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in the show and make

their own connections.

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I hope people feel inspired to make

a version of my own show.

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If only in their heads.

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Could anyone have done this, then?

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No!

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I am a professional artist.

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I have been working

at this for 30 years.

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Do not knock back.

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Modern art is not a con,

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I've been working hard for it!

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Have some respect!

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The first pot, when you walk

into this exhibition,

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has various quotes on it.

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Things like, "I just want to satisfy

myself that I am more clever

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than the celebrity charlatan."

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It is like you are immediately

engaging with people's skepticism.

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I want them to park their prejudice.

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The art world gets very fed up.

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Sometimes the media is justified.

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I am the worst audience

of contemporary art.

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The contemporary art world gets very

bored with the prejudices

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that the media has.

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They have a stock line

about it being shocking,

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worthless and a joke.

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That's their line.

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It is almost like the contemporary

art world is a particular culture.

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That's what I've become aware

of putting the show together.

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They are a tribe.

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It has its own internal rituals,

its little white temples.

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It can get bound up in itself.

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It does not necessarily speak

to the wider audience.

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At its worst, it can become very

insular and inward looking.

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It doesn't need the audience

a lot of the time.

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There are collectors, dealers,

artists, they have a close circle

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and they do not need

the money of the public.

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They do not need the

attention of the public.

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So the art world can

become self-indulgent.

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I am interested in communicating

with a wider audience.

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That is one of the attractions

of having an exhibition

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in the British Museum.

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So the first pot acknowledges that.

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Then they see what?

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Three helmets.

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It's a tease.

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Be on your guard and don't

take things for granted.

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Can you explain them?

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The first is a motorcycle helmet

that I rode on my motorcycle around

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Germany.

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It is very brightly painted.

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It is painted with aluminium.

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It is a real crash helmet.

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Next to that is an aluminium helmet,

and it looks like it has been dug up

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from an archaeological dig.

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I made it in 1981.

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It has been in my back

garden for 30 years.

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It looks corroded

and old and authentic.

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Then, next to that, is a ceremonial

headdress made from animal skin.

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It looks like a prop.

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That looks like the fake thing.

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The real thing looks like the fake

thing and that's what I was saying.

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Look closely at everything,

read things carefully,

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pay attention to the labels.

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And it has worked.

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I see people are studying

at the exhibition.

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They think, 'is this an object

from the artist or from the museum'?

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And reacting differently

to your work because it is here?

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I hope so.

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Because they're on guard,

they are looking at things

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neutrally.

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They are not thinking it's

contemporary art so they're

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looking for that.

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They have to drop their guard

and look at everything

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with an openness that this might be

a piece from Egypt from 2,000 years

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ago or maybe it is a piece

of contemporary art.

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It may be a throwaway thing

from Victorian England.

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I took a risk because these objects

are very significant.

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My objects are up against them.

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Although, part of the exhibition

is about a reference to everything,

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not just religion.

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'Hold your beliefs lightly'.

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It was aimed at religion

but the rigidity of belief

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is a dangerously mental illness.

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To hold onto your beliefs

until your knuckles are white

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is a very destructive

and insane thing to do.

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One of the quotes on the pots

is that you are into offbeat stuff.

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Yeah.

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Yet you said one of the big

ambitions in your career is to make

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happy and non-confrontational art.

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Offbeat is a light-hearted thing.

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Are you confrontational?

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Is your art confrontational?

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I think it probably is but not

in the way that many

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people might think.

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It's not about sex or violence.

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I am not necessary

challenging people.

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The area that is most influential on

me, psychotherapy and mental

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illness,

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I am working in the area of sanity

and what makes us a good life

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as a human being.

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Our mindset is central to that.

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That is the area where

I challenge people.

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So maybe that's where

I challenge people.

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It is about holding things lightly.

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It is a tightrope walk.

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You challenge people.

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You have pots with

graphic sexual imagery.

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There is a whole section about sex.

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Some of it is thousands of years

old and it is more explicit

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than the things I have made.

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There is a stone carving, 1,000

years old, from an Irish Church,

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of a woman holding her vagina open.

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It is like, nothing is new.

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The idea...

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The problem people have with sex

is not necessarily sex

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but the context it's in.

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It is about exploitation

and brutality and violence.

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These are the areas where sex...

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People get offended by sex

and they are the same people

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who are often doing horrific things.

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But in terms of whether you're

confrontational, you have put lines

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like, 'We have found

the body of your child'.

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really quite arresting stuff.

For

some who said they wanted to make

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happy art...

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Are you making happy art now?

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Definitely.

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Decorative stuff.

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That's underrated?

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Yes.

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Do you think the art world is too

hung up on meanings?

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The worst thing an artist can do

is to get too wrapped up

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in their own ideas.

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I want to create things

that look beautiful.

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The meaning is part of what makes

a good artwork but it should not be

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the be all and end all.

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Quite often I get the feeling that

you do not want to sit

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with the meaning of

a work in your house.

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Often I think about,

would a person like to come down

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and look at it the next day

after they bought it?

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That brings me to why

you have chosen pots.

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You object to being called a potter.

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That is how you made your name,

however, as a ceramicist.

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But you describe it

as a modest craft.

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It is.

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There are a couple of large pots

in the exhibition and that is as far

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as I can go.

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Any bigger and it is a technical

nightmare.

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But it need not be modest.

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In Britain, pottery is underrated.

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In China they treat

ceramics much higher,

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and it is a different approach.

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It's different in Britain.

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They are still modest

objects if you put them

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against most contemporary art.

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Even the flashiest ceramic,

next to a Jeff Koon

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or a Damien Hirst, it disappears.

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They are so shouty, the modern art.

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So in the context, they are modest.

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There's another reason

you chose that modesty,

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because allied with what you're

putting on your pots,

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that's where you think,

that's the point of your art.

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Initially why I did ceramics

was purely by chance.

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I was a penniless graduate.

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I didn't have a studio.

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Evening classes were practically

free at the time in London.

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I could go and keep my hand

in doing a bit of clay.

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Then I started making pots.

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I was interested in my art friends'

reaction to the pots.

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Craft was seen as naff,

ridiculous and unfashionable.

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It was seen as a kind of pretentious

next door neighbour of art.

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It was a class thing as well.

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The higher academician idea of art

as opposed to the workmanlike craft.

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I was interested in

the baggage around pottery.

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And then of course there's

the consumer baggage of pottery.

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'S and Higgs and you're aunties's

knickknacks and the baggage they

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have -- its antiques.

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They were all to me quite good

ammunition to work with.

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All of those thoughts

people have about pottery,

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they were not contemporary art,

so there was this constant

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battle with it.

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I trained as a contemporary

artist, not a potter.

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I was interested in all

of those different ideas.

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20 years on when I won

the Turner Prize people still had

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difficulty with the fact

that I was making pots.

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I thought, there's mileage in this!

You can make a shark into art and

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nobody questions it.

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To do pottery still seemed

to rankle with people!

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I found that fascinating.

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I was dealing with the prejudices

of the kind of liberal

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and intellectual elite.

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Here you are now dressed

as a man, which is not

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certainly your usual public persona.

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Why did you choose not

to wear a dress today?

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It is 9amin the morning.

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I would have to get up very early.

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Is that it?

Yes.

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And I have many other

meetings today.

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There's transport issues.

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Heat is the enemy

of drag, as they say.

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I wonder if you've changed

your approach to it.

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You seem to appear as Grayson,

Grayson in a suit more often.

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I'm more relaxed about it nowadays.

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It was never about publicity.

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Did it help, though?

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You say it was never about publicity

but did it help your art?

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Of course it did!

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For the same reasons

that the shockingness of winding

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people up about pottery helped?

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Yeah.

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In the modern world,

where the cultural field

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is so loaded, the media

is part of it.

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Anybody who clings on to the idea

that, I am above all that,

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is making a rod for their own back.

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But it was not only publicity.

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I'm a transvestite!

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I'm erotically compelled to dress up

like a woman.

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It's when you choose to dress up.

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I dress up when I want

to and when it is convenient

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and when it fits in

with what I'm doing.

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I will always opt to do it if I can.

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If we were doing this interview

later in the day and I did not have

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so much to do I would

probably be in a frock.

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I would like to do that.

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Is it coincidental to your art?

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I imagine it can't be. You just walk

around this exhibition to see how

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important it is to you. You see

Claire, your alter ego...

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Historically, you look back

through art, which is mainly done

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by men, and a lot

of it is about sex.

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Transvestism is part

of my sexuality.

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You describe yourself as Clare.

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Does Clare exist any more?

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I think, as I've got older,

I've integrated my transvestite

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behaviour into my personality.

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It's not a separate thing.

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That's part of sanity, bringing

all of your personalities into one.

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Integration.

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That's that shrine in the show,

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the woman with the anvil

hammering my parts together.

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The idea that sanity is not to push

parts of yourself away,

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to disassociate them...

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It's to bring them in...

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A good definition of sanity is to be

all of yourself all of the time

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to everyone, not to be a chameleon.

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That's mental illness.

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You make the point that how people

dress is a physical manifestation

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of how they want to be treated.

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It's an unconscious desire that's

part of transvestism.

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As a child...

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You've got to remember that sexual

fetishes on the whole developed

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in nurture, in childhood.

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They come out of that.

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There might be a predisposition

in a person, but I think

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they are mainly

to do with nurture.

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Therefore, if you feel as a child

that you're not getting the sort

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of attention that you want,

you might start looking

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for strategies or cues in life that

might get you that attention.

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Which brings me to one of the items

here, your high priestess cape.

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You go round the corner of this

exhibition and you see something

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that could be an oriental work.

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It's a satin cape

with embroidery on it.

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It's got exotic birds sitting

on a branch from a distance,

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but when you come closer you realise

they're not birds at all.

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They're basically flying penises.

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Yes, flying penises.

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The design was based

on a wedding kimono.

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The flying penis, often

you think of the erect penis

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as an aggressive thing.

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But there's also a delicate little

bird, perhaps there's a message in

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there to people. It goes back to

Roman times, piranha must Bosch used

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it, it goes back many years.

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I have got a model of a mediaeval

pilgrim badge that people would have

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gotten at a festival,

and that is a flying penis.

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I want to normalise these things

to a certain extent.

0:21:300:21:33

If I do it it would be great.

0:21:330:21:35

I want to say, grow up.

0:21:350:21:39

Do you think that has

happened with modern art,

0:21:390:21:42

that over the last 20 years,

people's reaction has changed?

0:21:420:21:44

There is more acceptance?

0:21:440:21:46

I think the media's reaction

is the thing that is difficult

0:21:460:21:48

to deal with.

0:21:490:22:01

The public are much more

tolerant than the media.

0:22:020:22:04

The media has a fantasy

of its audience, particularly

0:22:040:22:06

the right wing media.

0:22:060:22:16

In Britain that is quite

dominant in many ways.

0:22:160:22:23

You don't think they're reflecting

rather than informing?

0:22:230:22:30

They're certainly not

reflective of my audience.

0:22:300:22:31

My audience are much more

sophisticated than the popular media

0:22:320:22:34

view of contemporary art

and the issues that I deal with.

0:22:340:22:37

My audience are what I would call

a kind of middle class,

0:22:370:22:45

middlebrow, National Trust,

Radio 4, well-informed,

0:22:450:22:47

educated, the supporters of culture.

0:22:470:22:55

Has that always been your audience?

0:22:550:22:59

You're talking about Middle England.

0:22:590:23:06

In a sense, a transvestite

potter who puts...

0:23:060:23:08

People are tolerant!

0:23:080:23:13

I never get any hassle

with people who are tolerant.

0:23:130:23:20

That's so annoying.

0:23:200:23:23

Trying to stoke up shock.

0:23:230:23:26

Trying to stoke up shock.

0:23:260:23:27

It's boring.

0:23:270:23:27

Did you always know

people were tolerant?

0:23:270:23:29

Your family were not tolerant.

0:23:290:23:31

They're innocent.

0:23:310:23:31

That was 40 years ago.

0:23:310:23:33

The modern world has moved on.

0:23:330:23:34

The internet, the media...

0:23:340:23:48

And moved on because of people

like you being public

0:23:480:23:51

with their art?

0:23:510:23:52

I hope so.

0:23:520:23:53

I could be sentenced

to death in a few countries

0:23:530:23:55

for wearing a frock.

0:23:550:23:56

It's ridiculous!

0:23:570:24:00

Grayson, thank you for coming on

HARDtalk.

Pleasure.

0:24:000:24:10

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