My guest says it started as a joke, a fantasy he had. That he, a transvestite potter, would have an exhibition among the ancient treasures of the british museum. But that is exactly what he did. Grayson perry, welcome to hardtalk. It is a very unlikely mix of modern art at the british museum. Why did you want to do it . I had a track record of doing exhibitions here. It is quite sporadic. A predecessor in 1985 exhibitions, which he did with a collection at the museum of mankind, which i saw as a recent graduate. So i knew that such things were possible. The proposal was that you had the tomb of the unknown craftsman. Yes. The idea was, it was going to be a mixture of my work, as a representative of a fantasy civilisation, one i had in my head, and a celebration of the anonymous craftsmen throughout history. Of course that was a pointed thing. I did not realise until i finished that one of the most interesting thing about the title is that it is a counterpart to the world where i come from, where the identity of the maker is the most significant thing. It could be any old piece of tat but when it has a name applied to it, it becomes valuable. A Leonardo Da Vinci or damien hirst is only worth a huge amount of money if they its been confirmed they made it. Most of the things in this exhibition, we do not know who made them. I read you wore your magic robe whenever you went to the museum . There is an internal logic about my own civilisation. I am mischievous about it. I am playing with it. The idea that i have my teddy bear as the god of my civilisation. At first, it was just quite funny. Quickly, i realised it had legs. It could run. You chose things you liked . Yes. That is not a trivial thing, what you like. People would dismiss it. Why i was given the opportunity was because of who i am, i am a professional intuiter. You were alongside experts in the museum. That must be a strange business. Here you are, a professional intuiter and asking them to explain objects to you. How did they respond . Brilliantly. They are interested in showing their stuff. An opportunity to dig in the nether regions of the collection was lovely for them. You ended up with 170 objects from the museum. There were 30 of your own pieces of art. One of the first things you see when you come into the exhibition, is the line do not look too hard for meaning here. Do you mean that . What i mean is, people are allowed to make up their own mind. Sometimes this huge institution is a generator of meaning, something that it looks for all the time. The experts want to interpret everything, and give very detailed labels. I was aware of that, going around with the curators. They live or die by the accuracy of the information. Or the agreed accuracy of the information. Even the meanings they put to things are often guesses, orfluid, or their projections. Modern projections onto the past. Thats because of that. But it might be rubbish. What i want people to do is scrutinise the information in the show and make their own connections. I hope people feel inspired to make a version of my own show. If only in their heads. Could anyone have done this, then . No i am a professional artist. I have been working at this for 30 years. Do not knock that. Modern art is not a con, ive been working hard for it have some respect the first pot, when you walk into this exhibition, has various quotes on it. Things like, i just want to satisfy myself that i am more clever than the celebrity charlatan. It is like you are immediately engaging with peoples skepticism. I want them to park their prejudice. The art world gets very fed up. Sometimes the media isjustified. I am the worst audience of contemporary art. The contemporary art world gets very bored with the prejudices that the media has. They have a stock line about it being shocking, worthless and a joke. Thats their line. It is almost like the contemporary art world is a particular culture. Thats what ive become aware of putting the show together. They are a tribe. It has its own internal rituals, its little white temples. It can get bound up in itself. It does not necessarily speak to the wider audience. At its worst, it can become very insular and inward looking. It doesnt need the audience a lot of the time. There are collectors, dealers, artists, they have a close circle and they do not need the money of the public. They do not need the attention of the public. So the art world can become self indulgent. I am interested in communicating with a wider audience. That is one of the attractions of having an exhibition in the british museum. So the first pot acknowledges that. Then they see what . Three helmets. Its a tease. Be on your guard and dont take things for granted. Can you explain them . The first is a Motorcycle Helmet that i rode on my motorcycle around germany. It is very brightly painted. It is painted with aluminium. It is a real crash helmet. Next to that is an aluminium helmet, and it looks like it has been dug up from an archaeological dig. It is called Early EnglishMotorcycle Helmet. I made it in 1981. It has been in my back garden for 30 years. It looks corroded and old and authentic. Then, next to that, is a ceremonial headdress made from animal skin. Tee . [eeee nee eee bee eeieev ii the real thing looks like the fake thing and thats what i was saying. Look closely at everything, read things carefully, Pay Attention to the labels. And it has worked. I see people are studying at the exhibition. They think, is this an object from the artist or from the museum . And reacting differently to your work because it is here . I hope so. Because theyre on guard, they are looking at things neutrally. They are not thinking its contemporary art so theyre looking for that. They have to drop their guard and look at everything with an openness that this might be a piece from egypt from 2,000 years ago or maybe it is a piece of contemporary art. It may be a throwaway thing from victorian england. I took a risk because these objects are very significant. My objects are up against them. Although, part of the exhibition is about a reference to everything, notjust religion. hold your beliefs lightly. It was aimed at religion but the rigidity of belief is a dangerously mental illness. To hold onto your beliefs until your knuckles are white is a very destructive and insane thing to do. One of the quotes on the pots is that you are into offbeat stuff. Yeah. Yet you said one of the big ambitions in your career is to make happy and non confrontational art. 0ffbeat is a light hearted thing. Are you confrontational . Is your art confrontational . I think it probably is but not in the way that many people might think. Its not about sex or violence. I am not necessary challenging people. The area that is most influential on me, psychotherapy and mental illness, i am working in the area of sanity and what makes us a good life as a human being. 0ur mindset is central to that. That is the area where i challenge people. So maybe thats where i challenge people. It is about Holding Things lightly. It is a tightrope walk. You challenge people. You have pots with graphic sexual imagery. There is a whole section about sex. Some of it is thousands of years old and it is more explicit than the things i have made. There is a stone carving, 1,000 years old, from an irish church, of a Woman Holding her vagina open. It is like, nothing is new. The idea. The problem people have with sex is not necessarily sex but the context its in. It is about exploitation and brutality and violence. These are the areas where sex. People get offended by sex and they are the same people who are often doing horrific things. But in terms of whether youre confrontational, you have put lines like, we have found the body of your child. Really quite arresting stuff. For some who said they wanted to make happy art. Are you making happy art now . Definitely. Decorative stuff. Thats underrated . Yes. Do you think the art world is too hung up on meanings . The worst thing an artist can do is to get too wrapped up in their own ideas. I want to create things that look beautiful. The meaning is part of what makes a good artwork but it should not be the be all and end all. Quite often i get the feeling that you do not want to sit with the meaning of a work in your house. Often i think about, would a person like to come down and look at it the next day after they bought it . That brings me to why you have chosen pots. You object to being called a potter. That is how you made your name, however, as a ceramicist. But you describe it as a modest craft. It is. There are a couple of large pots in the exhibition and that is as far as i can go. Any bigger and it is a technical nightmare. But it need not be modest. In britain, pottery is underrated. In china they treat ceramics much higher, and it is a different approach. Its different in britain. They are still modest objects if you put them against most contemporary art. Even the flashiest ceramic, next to a jeff koon or a damien hirst, it disappears. They are so shouty, the modern art. So in the context, they are modest. Theres another reason you chose that modesty, because allied with what youre putting on your pots, thats where you think, thats the point of your art. Yes. Initially why i did ceramics was purely by chance. I was a penniless graduate. I didnt have a studio. Evening classes were practically free at the time in london. I could go and keep my hand in doing a bit of clay. Then i started making pots. I was interested in my art friends reaction to the pots. Craft was seen as naff, ridiculous and unfashionable. It was seen as a kind of pretentious next door neighbour of art. It was a class thing as well. The higher academician idea of art as opposed to the workmanlike craft. I was interested in the baggage around pottery. And then of course theres the consumer baggage of pottery. Its antiques and your auntiess knickknacks and the baggage they have. They were all to me quite good ammunition to work with. All of those thoughts people have about pottery, they were not contemporary art, so there was this constant battle with it. I trained as a contemporary artist, not a potter. I was interested in all of those different ideas. 20 years on when i won the turner prize people still had difficulty with the fact that i was making pots. I thought, theres mileage in this you can make a shark into art and nobody questions it. To do pottery still seemed to rankle with people i found that fascinating. I was dealing with the prejudices of the kind of liberal and intellectual elite. Here you are now dressed as a man, which is not certainly your usual public persona. Why did you choose not to wear a dress today . It is 9am in the morning. That would mean i would have to get up very early. Is that it . Yes. Ive got many other meetings today. Id have to rush about. Theres transport issues. Heat is the enemy of drag, as they say. I wonder if youve changed your approach to it. You seem to appear as grayson, grayson in a suit more often. Im more relaxed about it nowadays. It was never about publicity. Did it help, though . You say it was never about publicity but did it help your art . Of course it did for the same reasons that the shockingness of winding people up about pottery helped . Yeah. In the modern world, where the cultural field is so full now, the visual art field in london has exploded in the last 20 years, the media is part of it. Anybody who clings on to the idea that, im above all that, is making a rod for their own back. But it was not only publicity. Im a transvestite im erotically compelled to dress up like a woman. Its when you choose to dress up. I dress up when i want to and when it is convenient and when it fits in with what im doing. I will always opt to do it if i can. If we were doing this interview later in the day and i didnt have so much to do i would probably be in a frock. I would like to do that. Is it coincidental to your art . I imagine it cant be. You just need to walk around this exhibition to see how important it is to you. You see clare, your alter ego. Historically, you look back through art, which is mainly done by men, and a lot of it is about sex. Tra nsvestism is part of my sexuality. Why shouldnt it crop up . You describe yourself as clare when you are in a dress. Does clare exist any more . I think, as ive got older, ive integrated my transvestite behaviour into my personality. Its not a separate thing. Thats part of sanity, bringing all of your personalities into one. Integration. Thats that shrine in the show, the woman with the anvil in the background hammering my parts together. The idea that sanity is not to push parts of yourself away, to disassociate them. Its to bring them in. A good definition of sanity is to be all of yourself all of the time to everyone, not to be a chameleon. Thats mental illness. You make the point that how people dress is a physical manifestation of how they want to be treated. Its an unconscious desire thats part of transvestism. Asa child. Youve got to remember that sexual fetishes on the whole develop in nurture, in childhood. They come out of that. There might be a predisposition in a person, but i think theyre mainly to do with nurture. Therefore, if you feel as a child that youre not getting the sort of attention that you want, you might start looking for strategies or cues in life that might get you that attention. Which brings me to one of the items here, your High Priestess cape. You go round the corner of this exhibition and you see something that could be an oriental work. Its a satin cape with embroidery on it. Its got exotic birds sitting on a branch from a distance, but when you come closer you realise theyre not birds at all. Theyre basically flying penises. Yes, flying penises. The design was based on a wedding kimono. The flying penis, often you think of the erect penis as an aggressive thing. But theres also a delicate little bird, perhaps theres a message in there to people. It goes back to roman times, hyronimous bosch used it, it goes back many years. I have got a model of a mediaeval pilgrim badge that people would have gotten at a festival, and that is a flying penis. I want to normalise these things to a certain extent. If i do it it would be great. I want to say, grow up. Do you think that has happened with modern art, that over the last 20 years, peoples reaction has changed . There is more acceptance . I think the medias reaction is the thing that is difficult to deal with. The public are very tolerant, actually much more tolerant than the media. The media has a fantasy of its audience, particularly the right wing media. In britain thats quite dominant in many ways. You dont think theyre reflecting rather than informing . Theyre certainly not reflective of my audience. My audience are much more sophisticated than the popular media view of contemporary art and the issues i deal with. My audience are what i would call a kind of middle class, middlebrow, nationaltrust, radio 4, well informed, educated, the supporters of culture. Has that always been your audience . Youre talking about middle england. In a sense, a transvestite potter who puts. People are tolerant i never get any hassle with people who are tolerant. Thats so annoying. Trying to stoke up shock. Its boring. Did you always know people were tolerant . Your family were not tolerant. Theyre innocent. That was a0 years ago. The modern world has moved on. The internet, the media. And moved on because of people like you being public with their art . I hope so. I could be sentenced to death in a few countries for wearing a frock. Its ridiculous grayson perry, thank you for coming on hardtalk. Pleasure. The cold snaps not quite over yet. Of course, the snow has stopped, mostly that is, but its still pretty chilly out there and in some parts of the country we still have a little bit of snow lying around here and there, presumably this is from a snowman. Theres also the risk of some ice also first thing on friday morning, a really messy picture, by that i mean theres a lot of cloud, theres showers of rain, theres hail, sleet, snow falling across the hills and with temperatures freezing or below freezing outside of town theres the risk of iciness. You can see carlisle above freezing, couple of degrees above zero in manchester and some of those country lanes will be pretty cold. You know what happens at this time of year after a clear night, the air temperature might be just above zero, two or three degrees, but the road surface, the ground, is below zero, its frozen, so with rain showers moving through, you get that risk of icy patches, so take it steady. In terms of the weather on friday, there will be some sunshine around in many western areas, beautiful weather in the lowlands, southern scotland, cumbria, lancashire, throughout wales and the south coast but these eastern areas will continue to have showers. The wind from the north is blowing in the cloud and showers and only five expected in newcastle. Friday night is going to be cold, a frost on the way once again, you can see it developing across scotland, the north of england, all the way down to the south as well, so that means first thing on saturday its going to be told. One thing that is going to be happening during saturday is milder air starts to move in off the atlantic but its a slow process, after days of colder weather, mild air often doesnt march in, it moves in very slowly. On saturday, still pretty cold, a frost around in places in the morning and those temperatures struggling, 2 3, a bit milder in western areas, six expected in belfast. Then the south westerlies kick in by sunday, with that cloud and rain, often happens. Look at those temperatures, 11 or 12, glasgow getting up to around 10 degrees. Those south westerly winds all the way from the southern climes will continue to blow in during the course of monday, so that milder trend certainly continues into next week. How are we doing compared to other parts of europe . You can see london is on a par with paris during the course of the weekend. Elsewhere across the continent, athens in the high teens with some showers on the way. Bye bye. Im Sharanjit Leyl in singapore, the headlines a 50 billion entertainment merger between disney and fox what does it mean for your tv and movies . And so to the consumer, not only will they be getting more great content, high quality content, but they will be getting it in ways that they demand. Dont let it happen again. Australias Abuse Commission hands over five years of findings. Im kasia madera in london. Also in the programme russias president heaps praise on donald trump, and slams fabricated spying claims. And they call it fast fashion, but who are the biggest culprits for disposable clothes in asia . Live from our studios in singapore and london,