| C U L T U R E | G rayson Perry opened the door to the art world for millions of people through his award-winning Channel 4 TV programmes by making fabulously engaging studies that explored ideas of, among others, identity and masculinity; themes that are profoundly of interest to him and, so it proved, to a large TV audience. His programmes not only presented art and its process as riveting entertainment to people of all classes across the country, but they engaged the audience in a new way too. Perry enters the worlds of ordinary people; flawed, challenged and frequently mis-firing in themselves or as part of their community and, without pretence, he befriends them. In each episode he tentatively edges close enough to earn their trust and gradually they reveal themselves. This would be a challenge for any trained community worker but for an educated, successful artist - one who at best looks a little odd and at other times is a fully expressed transvestite, Serpentine Gallery: 8 Jun 2017 to 10 Sep 2017 The Most Popular Art Exhibition Ever! Grayson Perry: Death of a Working Hero, 2016, Tapestry, Courtesy the artist, Paragon Press and Victoria Miro, London P H O T O G R A P H Y : S T E P H E N W H I T E © G R A Y S O N P E R R Y 30 THE RIVER MAGAZINE | Summer 2017