YouSaid · the spoken record

Grayson Perry

lines on the record: 33
first: 2026-03-11
most recent: 2026-03-11
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

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“I remember it coming up when he sort of first did it. And it was sort of like within the art world it was like, oh, here goes Mauruccio again. And then when it sold, it became a different thing.”
2026-03-11 · Intelligence Squared · Sotheby's Talks | How Do Objects Achieve Iconic Status, with Grayson Perry and Xa Sturgis · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“As someone, anybody that's sort of been to art school in the last 50 years, it's quite a lame artwork. When I was a college, there was a guy who made a little box and it said, two buttons, is this art? Yes, no. And it just had little counters. Did you brush it? And it was fun. It was clever. But this sort of artwork has been around, it's vintage now, isn't it? Those kind of like, oh, what is art?”
2026-03-11 · Intelligence Squared · Sotheby's Talks | How Do Objects Achieve Iconic Status, with Grayson Perry and Xa Sturgis · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Someone should make a copy out of real pearls. That would be a very 70s artwork, wouldn't it? All conceptual art, look at me.”
2026-03-11 · Intelligence Squared · Sotheby's Talks | How Do Objects Achieve Iconic Status, with Grayson Perry and Xa Sturgis · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I mean, it's fascinating. It's fascinating that these very, very primal instincts are still going on with Pokemon cards or whatever. We'll continue to do it.”
2026-03-11 · Intelligence Squared · Sotheby's Talks | How Do Objects Achieve Iconic Status, with Grayson Perry and Xa Sturgis · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“The first level relic would be one that is the actual part of the saint. So if it's Jackie Onassis' hair or some blood or something, that would be a first level relic. This is like something that's touched the saint. And so a lot of memorabilia in a way is connected to that, you know, and the whole signature thing and the selfie thing is all, because we live in a world that is shaped by our religious instinct. I mean, art galleries are basically temples. You go to a special place to see a special thing. You make a pilgrimage to it. These are absolutely fundamental to being human. Religion, it wasn't an accident. It's almost part of evolution.”
2026-03-11 · Intelligence Squared · Sotheby's Talks | How Do Objects Achieve Iconic Status, with Grayson Perry and Xa Sturgis · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I agree with you. I think it probably is one of the most iconic artwork in the book. But I think he knew exactly what he was doing.”
2026-03-11 · Intelligence Squared · Sotheby's Talks | How Do Objects Achieve Iconic Status, with Grayson Perry and Xa Sturgis · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“There's so many other things, you know, there's so many other forms of art, visual art, but painting is often sort of held up as synonymous with being an artist. What sort of paintings do you do? Now, when I say I'm an artist, they go, I'd say, I've never done a fucking painting since I left art college because it's white man spunk. Go on a stick. I mean, some of my favorite artworks, the paintings, don't get me wrong, but I think it's time to just stop oil painting.”
2026-03-11 · Intelligence Squared · Sotheby's Talks | How Do Objects Achieve Iconic Status, with Grayson Perry and Xa Sturgis · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, I don't like those painters that just knock it out. I mean, I've got a big thing. I'm running a campaign at the moment called Just Stop Oil Painting because I think painting is overprivileged within our history massively. When I did my show at the British Museum 10 years ago, it was a global encyclopedia museum of culture and art. Hardly any paintings in it. Painting is so because the European Western tradition of painting most creativity in the world is not painting. But and yet there's this idea in places like this because it's easy to sell, easy to move. Everybody knows what to do with the painting. It's become iconic as an art form.”
2026-03-11 · Intelligence Squared · Sotheby's Talks | How Do Objects Achieve Iconic Status, with Grayson Perry and Xa Sturgis · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Rothko, he's the kind of icon of Tom Wolf wrote a book, The Painted Word, in the early 70s. I think it's one of, it was really influential on me when I was a student. And he talks about standing in this gallery, looking at, I don't think it was a Rofka, I think it might have been a Clifford Steele or something like that. And he would say, waiting for it to happen, right? And he stood there for ages and ages, waiting for it to happen. And it never did. And abstract expressism for me represents that kind of paint fetishism tainted with mechismo. It is an icon, but it's...”
2026-03-11 · Intelligence Squared · Sotheby's Talks | How Do Objects Achieve Iconic Status, with Grayson Perry and Xa Sturgis · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Another one I like. I chose this because it's almost like the opposite way round in that I'm not a great fan of Colder, but I saw this I liked that because it doesn't look like a typical colder, you know, and it's quite an early one and it looks like there are. If you'd have told me this, and I'm a big fan of outsider art, so this has almost been de-iconized for me because if you'd have shown me a typical, you know, mobile colder, I'd have gone, meh, you know, because it's like one of those artworks that you sort of see and you're waves. Whereas this, I looked at it and thought, yeah, because it had a freshness to me. And a lot of the things in the book I hadn't seen before. And that, you know, for me, vibrancy, freshness, novelty is such a hugely intrinsic part when I like something.”
2026-03-11 · Intelligence Squared · Sotheby's Talks | How Do Objects Achieve Iconic Status, with Grayson Perry and Xa Sturgis · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Thing, and he was really good because she doesn't look anything like the model. He really knew what that sort of disdain and everything. And of course, Rosie the Riveter, as a concept, as an idea was iconic within the wartime history.”
2026-03-11 · Intelligence Squared · Sotheby's Talks | How Do Objects Achieve Iconic Status, with Grayson Perry and Xa Sturgis · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“This I liked. Norman Rockwell, I think he sort of liked. He occupies a sort of similar space maybe to Lowry in some sort of ways. A lot of people look down on him. And he has painted quite a few iconic images, particularly of Americana. And Rose of the River, I like what you've got images, 1943. You know, this could be a kind of second-wave feminist image almost. It's a fantastic image because the model he used got really offended because he chunked her up quite a lot. He really beefed her up. But it's great. I mean, and her sort of look and then her foot on the mine canva, it's such a nice, and of course I'm always with the underdog, which are decorativeness and illustrativeness. These are things that are often looked down upon by art. When I was at college, decoration was a swear word, an illustrative was a swear word because of the fetishes of for splashy paint, of which we will get on to in a minute. What I call white man spunk. Anyway, this paint, you know, it's incredibly skillful.”
2026-03-11 · Intelligence Squared · Sotheby's Talks | How Do Objects Achieve Iconic Status, with Grayson Perry and Xa Sturgis · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“When people used to come up to me and they go, I love your work, Grayson. I always used to ask them, Oh, which one? And they could never name one. They never can name one. And so I think I'm safe from becoming iconic.”
2026-03-11 · Intelligence Squared · Sotheby's Talks | How Do Objects Achieve Iconic Status, with Grayson Perry and Xa Sturgis · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, she is. Oh no, I'm under absolutely no doubt in the way we're framing it today. She's one of the most iconic because she had the look, she's got the life story, all of the ingredients is perfect.”
2026-03-11 · Intelligence Squared · Sotheby's Talks | How Do Objects Achieve Iconic Status, with Grayson Perry and Xa Sturgis · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“When I was four years old, my mother had sex with the Miltman, which caused my parents to divide. And if you're of a certain age, that used to be a musical joke. You know, you're very friendly with them. So I grew up traumatized by a cliche. So therefore, if anything has a sniff of becoming sort of taudry, common, too popular, populist, iconic, I immediately say I'm out. So, this is why I wanted to do this talk this evening because it touches on a very tender personal journey for me. By the way, if anybody's interested in musicals, I've written a musical and I've written one song in the musical which is called Nobody Gets You and it's somebody telling me that because I don't have a gimmick. And one of the lines is, Frida with her monobrow.”
2026-03-11 · Intelligence Squared · Sotheby's Talks | How Do Objects Achieve Iconic Status, with Grayson Perry and Xa Sturgis · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I was young and I was a student, and I used to quite like Frida Carlo, you know, and I went to an exhibition in the 80s some kind. I was in America and I happened to be in this Texan University and they had a big exhibition which there's not many paintings to go around and they must have had 20 paintings in this show. And I was like, wow, I like Frida Carlo. Then Frida Carlo became Frida Carlo. I mean, I even visited her house in Mexico City, you know, and so I was a bit of a fan of Frida Carlo, you know, but then, of course, she became the sort of poster girl for a certain sort of artist, you know, it was the sort of, you know, Madonna bought one. I chose this because her as an artist represented somebody who went in my mind went through this process of iconization. And I felt the pleasure in the work drain out of me because I'm such a snob.”
2026-03-11 · Intelligence Squared · Sotheby's Talks | How Do Objects Achieve Iconic Status, with Grayson Perry and Xa Sturgis · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“But it's not as an image, it's sort of like, you know, it's very, very famous and it has a certain graphic, you know, it's like an advert almost. It's like an advert for sixth form philosophy”
2026-03-11 · Intelligence Squared · Sotheby's Talks | How Do Objects Achieve Iconic Status, with Grayson Perry and Xa Sturgis · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Which look incredibly like icons because I'm always slightly kind of suspicious about bang out the same artwork again and again and again. It's a great tactic because it just means that every museum gets a representative sample and every collector can buy something that you put on the wall and people go, I know what that is, that's a Klimpt, you know, even if they know nothing about R. And so it's a tactic used by artists from the year dot. So if you can tick all the boxes by doing an icon looking work and you become an icon and then you bang out a load of paintings that look vaguely similar, you're an icon heaven then, aren't you?”
2026-03-11 · Intelligence Squared · Sotheby's Talks | How Do Objects Achieve Iconic Status, with Grayson Perry and Xa Sturgis · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And having a kind of iconography that everybody understood and could read into and be satisfied by and not be mystified. Some teenage obscurantism.”
2026-03-11 · Intelligence Squared · Sotheby's Talks | How Do Objects Achieve Iconic Status, with Grayson Perry and Xa Sturgis · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“He makes it into a king or a saint or something. So it's therefore it has a more iconic quality literally in the proper sense of the word.”
2026-03-11 · Intelligence Squared · Sotheby's Talks | How Do Objects Achieve Iconic Status, with Grayson Perry and Xa Sturgis · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think it is this is a good contender for an icon, I think, because Cathy was so prolific, you know, and there's a few very, very famous ones, but this, you know, I've seen this painting, and it is Peter, you remember of Picasso.”
2026-03-11 · Intelligence Squared · Sotheby's Talks | How Do Objects Achieve Iconic Status, with Grayson Perry and Xa Sturgis · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think it's iconic of shenanigans in the sale room. And I wouldn't say it's scandal. I wouldn't say it's iconic as a Van Gogh because it's not one if you ask most people could fairly represent it. That's not in their top 10 Van Gogh.”
2026-03-11 · Intelligence Squared · Sotheby's Talks | How Do Objects Achieve Iconic Status, with Grayson Perry and Xa Sturgis · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Of what we find beautiful is familiarity as well. And so when we've been fed and imaged time and time and time and time and time again through books and history and references, it's sort of, you know, we're very susceptible to the familiarity.”
2026-03-11 · Intelligence Squared · Sotheby's Talks | How Do Objects Achieve Iconic Status, with Grayson Perry and Xa Sturgis · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“There's a short story, I'll try and paraphrase it. A guy is in a dining club in Japan and they serve him up this fish and they're all looking at him while he's eating the fish. And they say, what was it like? He said it was a bit bland. And he said, you're the first person that's ever eaten it, not knowing that it might kill you. And of course, we all say it's delicious.”
2026-03-11 · Intelligence Squared · Sotheby's Talks | How Do Objects Achieve Iconic Status, with Grayson Perry and Xa Sturgis · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It's all about, I hate to tell you this, it's all about sub sheets if it's, you know, it's like the way you talk about this is, in your opinion, or, you know, obviously there's a collective opinion over time of curators that kind of give status to artworks. We don't want to go into that now, but you can question it and go, yeah, it's okay. It's a nice realistic drawing. Well done, Raphael. But this sort of idea that things are sublime, you know, immediately I kind of start curdling. He starts curdling. I want, you know.”
2026-03-11 · Intelligence Squared · Sotheby's Talks | How Do Objects Achieve Iconic Status, with Grayson Perry and Xa Sturgis · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Composition is also clear. I mean, I love Byzantine icons, you know, they're one of my favorite sorts of artwork. And it's got that figure in the frame, you know, dead central kind of thing like that. So it has got that iconic power as it literally is an icon, isn't it?”
2026-03-11 · Intelligence Squared · Sotheby's Talks | How Do Objects Achieve Iconic Status, with Grayson Perry and Xa Sturgis · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Occasionally people, I mean, this beard has really sort of flawed people, and if I've had my hair swept back, but a lot of people recognize me by my silhouette. I think it was the guy, Owen, what's his name who drew the Simpsons? Yeah, Matt Roni. He said that a good cartoon character is always recognizable by their silhouette. And I think a lot of the iconic artwork, you could probably draw a silhouette of the image. And people go, oh, yeah, that's climpes, the kiss, or whatever.”
2026-03-11 · Intelligence Squared · Sotheby's Talks | How Do Objects Achieve Iconic Status, with Grayson Perry and Xa Sturgis · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I went to the Guadalupe shrine in Mexico City and I spent the entire time going because every chapel had a copy of the Guadalupe icon. And I'm going, is this the one? Is this the one? And of course, in the end, you come to the basilica and you, oh, that's the one.”
2026-03-11 · Intelligence Squared · Sotheby's Talks | How Do Objects Achieve Iconic Status, with Grayson Perry and Xa Sturgis · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Object. But I think it's the absolute opposite of helpful, as the Louvre shows. On the board of the British Museum, I saw the heat map of where the visitors go, where the, yeah, Rosetta Stone, mummy.”
2026-03-11 · Intelligence Squared · Sotheby's Talks | How Do Objects Achieve Iconic Status, with Grayson Perry and Xa Sturgis · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“With our Stradivarius Messiah violin, which is obviously the most famous violin in the world. And just Held for leather with that and just promote the”
2026-03-11 · Intelligence Squared · Sotheby's Talks | How Do Objects Achieve Iconic Status, with Grayson Perry and Xa Sturgis · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And I think this process is happening all the time. And it's like you say, it's interesting how people are desperate for everything to become a thing, because then it's like being a brand. It saves people having to make a judgment with their own eyes. They go, oh, it's that brand. I was in the mama in New York. And this woman was desperately going around going, is this the one? Is this the way? She was in a room of warholes going, is this the one? Is this? And then she said, that's the Marilyn. Then she had a selfie in front of it like this because that was the thing. That was the one. And I think that it just turns people into lazy for not looking at it and deciding whether they like it for themselves. I've been told this is”
2026-03-11 · Intelligence Squared · Sotheby's Talks | How Do Objects Achieve Iconic Status, with Grayson Perry and Xa Sturgis · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Museum to have at all they need something to sell tickets, they want a kind of front of house lead image. Think it's very, I think we live in an age, and I think one of the reasons Icon has become so threadbare, we live in the digital age, we live in the age of social media and the internet and the internet has this. Process and it turns everything into. Everything becomes a thing. In fact, you've seen it on the internet. It gets likes, it goes viral, and it becomes a thing and it kind of kills it. I mean, we've got a place in the country down near the cliffs, down near in Sussex. And about 10 years ago, suddenly there was towards Korean tourists, hordes of them, because the cliffs had featured in a K-pop video. And they'd become a thing, you know”
2026-03-11 · Intelligence Squared · Sotheby's Talks | How Do Objects Achieve Iconic Status, with Grayson Perry and Xa Sturgis · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It's a very threadbare word, isn't it? I mean, the editor in any broadsheet newspaper would immediately scrub it out and say, find another word, please. And that kind of chimes with my particular thought whenever I hear the word icon, I think the synonym is cliche. Basically, as soon as something becomes an icon, you know, like say the Mona Lisa, it just becomes this thing. And I can't see it as an aesthetic object anymore. So it basically the word icon kills any work of art former.”
2026-03-11 · Intelligence Squared · Sotheby's Talks | How Do Objects Achieve Iconic Status, with Grayson Perry and Xa Sturgis · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT