Shock Tactics : Grayson Perry and Jane Stevenson

Part of the Charleston Festival held at Charleston Farmhouse this talk combined Grayson Perry with the author of a new biography of Edward Burra, Jane Steveneson.

This was a super event. Speculation had mounted amongst the audience as to whether Grayson would be in a dress and there was a gasp of delight when he appeared in a green romper suit complete with pink flowers. He was speaking about an exhibition he had curated in Redhill and promoting the catalogue. I’m not sure I’d really understood him before but as soon as he spoke I ‘got it’. He’s a big fairly beefy east ender who subverts what you might therefore think of him by the fact he wants to wear girls’ clothes and he subverts the idea of a man in girls’ clothes by being a fairly beefy east ender! I’m now a big fan!

Jane Stevenson held her own on the stage as she was talking about a similarly individualistic artist, Edward Burra.

Questions at the end brought the two themes together well and were not dominated by Grayson however at the booksigning at the end his queue was out of the tent door!

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