I have always been attracted to the works and presentations made by Grayson Perry the transvestite Turner Prize winning potter and multi-talented artist, weaver, art critic and broadcaster.
In the Best Possible Taste – Grayson Perry – Channel 4.
His latest broadcast on taste has started off very well indeed. By engaging with with male and female factions of a Sunderland community, Perry has shown us that self-image and projected image is dependent upon viewpoint. As part of the series Perry is undertaking, he uses photography to record scenes and moments in order to translate them into huge art tapestries.
What is interesting in all this is the transformation that Perry makes from the memory of the engagement, through to the use of the images he made and the ultimate representation in the woven pieces. The drawings are without doubt drawn by the hand of Perry but what is particularly revealing is that in representing himself as Claire on a night out with the girls, she looks altogether more presentable in the tapestry than in the footage itself. That said, the Sunderland women helped prepare Perry in the style or image of themselves yet when the the programme ended, Perry sang karaoke dressed as his alter ego that in some ways was more presentable and approachable than the night out version. Perry long ago took the view that he could not reasonably pass as a woman so went OTT in dressing in Bo-Peep style self-designed party frocks.
The point of all this is very much an issue of how we perceive ourselves and how we are received by others. In order to fit in on the night out, Perry adopted a locally accepted uniform but when approaching the subjects on his own terms he preponderated in equal amounts between unshaven Grayson and Claire with equal ease. Maybe it is because we so often see Grayson in both guises that we ourselves are comfortable in seeing him presented either way.
What does spring to mind is the use of the phrase ‘photographic likeness’. How often do we hear a reaction to a portrait image we have made to be greeted by ‘That’s not me, I don’t look like that’. It is very much what we as onlookers place in an image as to how we decide whether the likeness is there or not. In this broadcast the subjects could identify easily with Perry’s representation which was quite moving for some as they had never seen themselves in that light before.
As photographers, we should strive to achieve the image as we see it and hopefully introduce a little something into the subject that they have hitherto never noticed themselves.