Grayson Perry:Who Are You?

This art exhibition was also a TV series on Channel 4 looking at how to explore questions of identity in a portrait. The people Grayson chose to explore did not have a straightforward identity, apart from Chris Huhne, the Great White Male, who seemed to Grayson to be incapable of change - unbearable really, so he made his portrait as a pot and then smashed it, mending it with gold. It was to remind Huhne that vulnerability can be an asset.

Grayson has portrayed himself as a map of days - a walled city, with things inside and outside the walls - a map that takes a long time to take in. He has portrayed the British with a huge, brightly coloured comfort blanket, with all the many things we love and identify with on it.

Grayson lived with the Jesus Army for sometime, observing how they have rescued people from their old self-destructive ways or life on the streets, to become a family in a shared house with a shared way of life. They sing in the evenings and instead of watching TV and they also share their money so he made their group portrait in the shape of a money box styled like a reliquary. Rather wittily it has "Jesus Saves" written at the top.

Another person who was going through an identity crisis was a man who was suffering from Alzheimer's disease, and this was also shattering for his wife. All their shared happy memories were disappearing. I loved the pot Grayson made them - the wife's scarf making a protection for them both, her face buried in his chest, perhaps with grief, and his face smiling - but vacantly, not understanding the nature of the problem.

You can see the exhibits here.
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/reviews/grayson-perry-who-are-you-national-portrait-gallery-review-sublimely-beautiful-9820710.html

We could have spent hours looking at this.

This is on at the National Portrait Gallery, where the portraits are mostly rectangular objects with paint on them. But none of Perry's portraits are that. There were a lot of people looking at the Perry exhibits and talking about them with great animation and awe.