Grayson Perry has always been one of my favorite artists. I’ve admired his work, from his pre-Turner Prize days and felt a kinship to his interesting attempts to take ugly subject matter (poverty, drug addiction) and turn it into intimate and beautiful decoration on his masterful ceramic pottery. Who Are You?, his recent exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery, (as well as a 4-part series on Channel 4) was one of the highlights of my last visit to London.
Playing to the Gallery is a small book of Perry’s Reith Lecture series in which he discusses art, and attempts to answer, in layman’s terms, what makes something art, how to determine if it is good or bad and how everyone can feel differently about those ideals and still understand what “art” is.
