The Turner Prize-winning artist recorded the first of his four Radio 4 Reith Lectures last night at Tate Modern.
When presenter Sue Lawley introduced him as the only cross-dresser in the 65-year history of the Reith Lectures, the potter interrupted to say, archly: “Well, so far as we know.”
Perry told his audience, including Lord Patten and Alain de Botton, that contemporary art was now mainstream. “For me the watershed moment was when Lynda Snell, the self-appointed cultural ambassador to Ambridge, campaigned to get someone from there on to the Fourth Plinth. I thought if she is a fan of modern art, then the game is won.”
He recalled winning the Turner Prize without ever being in an art magazine. “Somebody said that’s like climbing Everest without oxygen.” While one of the worst reviews of his pots had started: “If I had a hammer…”
Curators were the popes of the art world, he said, who must never be collectors in their own fields. Perry lives near Tate director Sir Nicholas Serota and said he had been “lucky enough to see his world-class collection of Cliff Richard memorabilia”. Sir Nicholas played along. “I am now aware that the price of Cliff Richard memorabilia has gone well beyond my reach,” he complained.
