“Perversion to match the curtains”? Grayson Perry’s tranny aesthetic

Grayson Perry CBE, winner of the 2003 Turner Prize, is one of Britain’s most prominent contemporary multi-media artists and cultural commentators. Married to Philippa and a father to daughter Flo, Perry is also an “out” practising cross-dresser, famed for his female alter ego Claire. This article at...

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Main Author: Margaret GILLESPIE
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Laboratoire d’Etudes et de Recherches sur le Monde Anglophone (LERMA) 2019-06-01
Series:E-REA
Subjects:
Online Access:https://journals.openedition.org/erea/7841
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author Margaret GILLESPIE
author_facet Margaret GILLESPIE
author_sort Margaret GILLESPIE
collection DOAJ
description Grayson Perry CBE, winner of the 2003 Turner Prize, is one of Britain’s most prominent contemporary multi-media artists and cultural commentators. Married to Philippa and a father to daughter Flo, Perry is also an “out” practising cross-dresser, famed for his female alter ego Claire. This article attempts to assess the role of transvestism in Perry’s work and gauge its provocative potential in the light of the artist’s own increasingly established position within the cultural mainstream. Concentrating particularly on his ceramic art and the artist’s public appearances in drag, it will be argued that cross-dressing remains central to Perry’s aesthetic and that the blurring of gender binaries offers one of the keys to understanding Perry’s ambiguous and incongruous status as at once deeply subversive and yet conventional and homely: “perversion to match the curtains” in his own words.
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spelling doaj-art-a0a81ac9364f4858b125b779e665ff982025-01-09T12:54:44ZengLaboratoire d’Etudes et de Recherches sur le Monde Anglophone (LERMA)E-REA1638-17182019-06-0116210.4000/erea.7841“Perversion to match the curtains”? Grayson Perry’s tranny aestheticMargaret GILLESPIEGrayson Perry CBE, winner of the 2003 Turner Prize, is one of Britain’s most prominent contemporary multi-media artists and cultural commentators. Married to Philippa and a father to daughter Flo, Perry is also an “out” practising cross-dresser, famed for his female alter ego Claire. This article attempts to assess the role of transvestism in Perry’s work and gauge its provocative potential in the light of the artist’s own increasingly established position within the cultural mainstream. Concentrating particularly on his ceramic art and the artist’s public appearances in drag, it will be argued that cross-dressing remains central to Perry’s aesthetic and that the blurring of gender binaries offers one of the keys to understanding Perry’s ambiguous and incongruous status as at once deeply subversive and yet conventional and homely: “perversion to match the curtains” in his own words.https://journals.openedition.org/erea/7841contemporary artcross-dressingsocial classGrayson Perryceramicsgender identity
spellingShingle Margaret GILLESPIE
“Perversion to match the curtains”? Grayson Perry’s tranny aesthetic
E-REA
contemporary art
cross-dressing
social class
Grayson Perry
ceramics
gender identity
title “Perversion to match the curtains”? Grayson Perry’s tranny aesthetic
title_full “Perversion to match the curtains”? Grayson Perry’s tranny aesthetic
title_fullStr “Perversion to match the curtains”? Grayson Perry’s tranny aesthetic
title_full_unstemmed “Perversion to match the curtains”? Grayson Perry’s tranny aesthetic
title_short “Perversion to match the curtains”? Grayson Perry’s tranny aesthetic
title_sort perversion to match the curtains grayson perry s tranny aesthetic
topic contemporary art
cross-dressing
social class
Grayson Perry
ceramics
gender identity
url https://journals.openedition.org/erea/7841
work_keys_str_mv AT margaretgillespie perversiontomatchthecurtainsgraysonperrystrannyaesthetic