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transvestite potter wins turner prize
Post #176 • December 17, 2003, 3:44 PM • 2 Comments
This year's Turner Prize went to a heterosexual transvestite potter. Grayson Perry accepted the award at the Tate Britain gallery in drag. Not just in drag; he was dressed up as his alter-ego Claire, looking like a bad hallucination of a six-year-old girl in red pumps, a pink satiny dress, and bows.
Based on the images of his work on his website, I concur with the Turner committee's decision to give him the award over the Chapman Brothers, who were favored to win.
Update - I can't believe I missed this quote from Perry in the Guardian article: "If you call your pot art you're being pretentious. If you call your shark art you're being bold and philosophical."
2.
January 6, 2004, 8:55 PM
In regards to: http://www.24hourmuseum.org.uk/exh_gfx_en/ART16287.html
If Hirst's shark is recognised as great art, then how come Eddie's, which was on display two years beforehand, isn't? Do we perhaps have here an undiscovered artist of genius, who got there first, or is it that a dead shark isn't art at all?
Isn't this something that should have been answered 20-30 years ago? Don't we all know that the art world is not what defines expression, but rather groups of people? Collectors say things like, "I'd rather buy this shark then this handbag or house" - know what I mean? These are just expensive objects that were not made for us. It's like a Prada shark.
Also, what's with the Stuckists and the word "genious"? May we please drop that word? Artistic "genus" is, and always has been, about cocks.
Labeling objects as art or not-art is what's making the gallery a tomb as far as American culture is concerned. May we PLEASE move on and understand that art becomes famous for the same reasons reality shows do?
1.
Jack
December 23, 2003, 8:32 PM
Although his very public transvestism seems dubiously calculated to get attention, and to my mind is both counterproductive and irrelevant, Perry's work appears to be earnest and honest. That does not, however, necessarily translate into artistic merit.
The pots as such are undistinguished; he's really a pot decorator, and one wonders if he'd gotten the same attention if he'd used a less novel medium. Once one gets past the confessional and "subversive" aspects of the work, it seems rather simplistic and ordinary. I have rather more respect for Perry's pots than for the ceramics of Jeff Koons, but no, that's not saying much.