Watching the telly - Grayson Perry

Last night on Channel 4 there was another programme by Grayson Perry. His thing is to go and explore certain experiences of Being a Man and then make artworks out of them. In this show he went to some grim estates and interviewed some gangs of youths who wear hoodies, go about in gangs and get into trouble with the police. Sometimes there's drug-dealing, sometimes there are stabbings of other locals gangs. When Grayson interviews them - and their mums - you see there's more to the story that this. There's a lack of work for the men, and a lack of "roles" for male people.

Anyway, the artwork he made was a statue which was quite horrifying - a totemic figure with all these knives sticking out of it and the title "King of Nowhere". The thing about Grayson is he seems harmless and yet his work packs a punch. He tells you what he's thinking about - that the young men feel humiliated by their inability to find a place in the pecking order, except at the very bottom, and they have no father figure to give them a leg-up. In this case he shows that the young man himself is hurt and gets more hurt (all those knives) even as he struggles along with his balaclava and his hood up and his joints and his mates. They are also very skinny, these boys, as though they live on Monster Munch and tomato ketchup. Certainly, this show made me think about them with a teacher's concern.

It seemed to me that Grayson shouldn't have shown them his artwork, it was a very hurtful moment, as though he was sticking knives in them himself. They shrugged it off in front of the camera  - quite funny comments - but how did they actually feel? Grayson is very talented and very famous and I don't think he should use his position to be cruel.

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GQ magazine article here-suicide