Grayson Perry: Who Are You?

For my partner's birthday, he desperately wanted to see Grayson Perry's exhibition at The National Portrait Gallery - so that's exactly what we did, and I would heartily recommend it.

The exhibition, entitled "Who Are You?" is Perry's investigation into the idea of how an identity is formed; his work is intertwined with, and alongside, the great and the good of British traditional history and this set-up really hammers home the idea that these long-treasured, antiquated figures are no more lofty than the modern-day characters Perry chooses to portray, that 'identity' isn't just the love-child of a Twitter bio generation, something forged in the modern day - and neither is it the privilege awarded to the men (and yes, it's predominantly white, heterosexual men) hung on the NPG's walls; it's a time-honoured, essential search to justify a person's existence. One particularly moving juxtaposition of the new and the old was finding Perry's resplendent, Africana "I Am A Man" sculpture, which depicts the epiphany-like journey of Jaz, a black teenager, undergoing HRT in order to become a man, opposite the traditional bronze bust of General Gordon of Khartoum; here in one room, you have the pious Victorian war-martyr, who gave a free voice to the Sudan, looking towards the sexually transformative, Peter Pan-inspired sculpture of a young black boy, sounding his horn in praise of his independence and individuality. It was a rather lovely scene, the old and the new commerated and celebrated together: Gordon, who is often thought to have suppressed his apparent homosexuality in order to devote himself to his faith, to his military duty and to adhere to the social convention of the time, looking on at a once oppressed black girl who is now free to live life as a man. 

Each of Perry's pieces has a typically tongue in cheek tone to it, and each tells a different story: he looks at the identities of a group of deaf people, a religious commune, the Brits as a nation, a fast-track celeb and a white Muslim convert to mention a few; each piece feels instantly familiar and recognisable, each dredges up an emotion you know you've felt before. Here, in these portraits, Perry taps into something that is perhaps an innately British idea, a subconscious awareness of identity, of who and what we are - and why. 

The whole exhibition is thought-provoking and most certainly worth a look. The exhibition is free to see; however, perhaps as a result, there seem to be a few eedgits dithering around, taking selfies, pointing at penises and live-tweeting, but if you elbow them out the way, the portraits are worth putting up with the eedgits. 

"Who Are You?" runs until March and is accompanied by a channel 4 documentary series. http://www.npg.org.uk/whatson/graysonperry/display.php