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Sotheby's Talks | How Do Objects Achieve Iconic Status, with Grayson Perry and Xa Sturgis
00:46:03
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- [00:00]
Grayson Perry
Foreign.
- [00:04]
Connor Boyle
Welcome to Intelligence Squared, where great minds meet. I'm head of programming Connor Boyle. Coming up on the podcast, we've got something from our friends at Sotheby's that we think you'll enjoy. It's an episode of Sotheby's Talks, the podcast series that takes listeners inside the world of Sotheby's. In this episode, a special edition of Sotheby's Friday Lates hosted to celebrate the launch of Icons 100 extraordinary objects from Sotheby's History, published with Phaiden Press. To listen to more episodes of Sotheby's Talks, featuring the likes of Marina Abramovich, Mary McCartney, Tracy Emin, and Julianne Moore. Just search Sotheby's Talks. Wherever you get your podcasts.
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Moderator (possibly from Sotheby's or Intelligence Squared)
I would love to hear how you each understand and define the term icon. I think we all know it's somewhat fraught from overuse, and it would be interesting to hear why, in fact, you think it is so popular. So, Helena, what are your thoughts?
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Helena Newman
I think that it starts with the image, something instantly recognizable that you have a deep connection with. There's an element of veneration. We come to the religious association. And I think there's also something to do with the story, which we will come to in our various conversations. It can be scandal and it can be incredibly tragic. Tragic. And because we're here at Sotheby's, I think there's also an element of market making in many of these stories. So the combination, that kind of intoxicating combination of rarity, universality, and maybe an element of the power play of wealth and possession comes in as well.
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Moderator (possibly from Sotheby's or Intelligence Squared)
Brilliant. Grayson, do you agree?
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Grayson Perry
Well, it's a very threadbare word, isn't it? I mean, the editor in any broadsheet newspaper would immediately scrub it out and say, find another word, please. And that kind of chimes with my particular thought whenever I hear the word icon. I think the synonym is cliche. Basically, as soon as something becomes an icon, you know, like say, the Mona Lisa, it just becomes this thing, and I can't see it as an aesthetic object anymore. So it basically, the word icon kills any work of art form.
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Moderator (possibly from Sotheby's or Intelligence Squared)
Very interesting, Czar. How can you follow that?
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Zahr Sturgis
Yeah, I don't. Yeah. So I think. I agree that I don't think it's a. A particularly happy fate for a work of art to become an icon, but I do think it is something about slipping the shackles of the object itself and entering into a different sphere, isn't it? So no longer just the gallery or the auction house or wherever it is, but having a different place in the world. Whether it's a place you want to be, I think is a very valid question. But there really are not that many, I would say, true icons that. That have that instant recognition and have that life beyond themselves, which I think is key to what I think of as an icon.
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Moderator (possibly from Sotheby's or Intelligence Squared)
Very good. We're going to talk through a number of very interesting examples, but I would love to talk a little bit more about what that mechanism is and what the different routes are, perhaps to achieving iconic status. I was thinking myself, you know, there's the great story that the Mona Lisa only really became famous after it had been stolen. Sometimes it's about an auction record having been set, sometimes it's about appearing on an episode of the Simpsons. But maybe that only follows once you have achieved iconic status. Do you have any further thoughts between you on the routes to icon hood?
- [03:36]
Zahr Sturgis
Well, I think some people try to turn things they have into icons. I went to this fantastic museum in Turkey, in Gobekli Tepe, a museum of Roman mosaics and the biggest collection of Roman mosaics, I think, anywhere in the world. And within it they are desperately trying to make this fragment of a face of a gypsy girl, I mean, not a gypsy girl, I don't suppose, into the icon for that museum. And so it's on every poster. And then within the display, you walk through room after room of Roman mosaics and then you go into a black space, you walk through a sort of corridor, you enter into a room in which this single fragment is on a wal spotlit. And by the time you're there, you are quite excited to be in the presence of this. But there is nothing intrinsic in this particular fragment that makes it an icon, but it's an example of a museum trying very hard to make themselves have an icon. Because it's a useful thing for a museum to have.
- [04:42]
Grayson Perry
Yeah, they need something to sell tickets. They want a kind of front of house lead image. And I think it's very. I think we live in an age and I think one of the reasons icon has become so threadbare, we live in the digital age, we live in the age of social media and the Internet. And the Internet has this particular process and it turns everything into a thing. You know, everything becomes a thing. In fact, you've seen it on the Internet and it becomes. It gets likes. It goes viral, it becomes a thing and it kind of kills it. I mean, we've got a place in the country down near the cliffs down there. In Sussex. And about 10 years ago, suddenly there was hordes of Korean tourists, hordes of them, because these. The cliffs had featured in a K pop video, and they'd become a thing, you know? And I think this process is happening all the time. And it's like you say, it's interesting how people are desperate for everything to become a thing, because then it's like being a brand. It saves people having to make a judgment with their own eyes. They go, oh, it's that brand. I was in the MoMA in New York, and this woman was desperately going around going, is this the one? Is this the way she was in a room of Warhols going, is this the one? Is this? And then she. That's the Marilyn. Oh, then she had a selfie in front of it like this, because that was the thing. That was the one. And I think that that is. It just turns people into lazy for not looking at it and deciding whether they like it for themselves. It's like I've been told, this is good.
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Moderator (possibly from Sotheby's or Intelligence Squared)
It's interesting, this. This museum making an effort to sort of fashion an icon. But are the downsides. You know, do you have the Mona Lisa problem where you have a separate route?
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Zahr Sturgis
We don't have an icon, actually. We engaged a Chinese specialist to come and suggest how we could make the Ashmolean more popular with Chinese visitors. And the answer was to find an icon. And they thought maybe we could go with our Stradivarius Messiah violin, which is obviously the most famous violin in the world, and just go, hell for leather with that, and just promote the whole museum to China around this single object. But I think it's the absolute opposite of helpful as the Louvre shows.
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Grayson Perry
When I was on the board of the British Museum, I saw the heat map of where the visitors go, where the. Yeah, Rosetta stone mummies, Elgin Marbles out.
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Zahr Sturgis
I've always thought that, actually the Mona Lisa problem could be very happily solved by putting 20 very good copies of the Mona Lisa all around the loos and announce that one of them is the real one and not tell anyone which one it is.
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Grayson Perry
I went to the Guadalupe shrine in Mexico City, and I spent the entire time going, because every chapel had a copy of the Guadalupe icon. And I'm going, is this the one? Is this the one? And of course, in the end, you come to the basilica and you, oh, that's the one.
- [07:24]
Moderator (possibly from Sotheby's or Intelligence Squared)
Yes. Well, look, Grayson, you're clearly suspicious of the concept, but it does occur in my mind that some of your practice is about developing identities, Personas, I think some people might say you're an icon. Are you comfortable with the concept?
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Grayson Perry
Yeah, occasionally people. I mean, this beard is really sort of flawed. People, if I had my hair sweat swept back. But a lot of people recognize me by my silhouette. I think it was the guy, what's his name, who drew the Simpsons. Yeah, Matt Roney. He said that a good cartoon character is always recognizable by their silhouette. And I think a lot of the iconic artwork, you could probably draw a silhouette of the image and people are going, oh, yeah, that's Klimt's the Kiss or whatever.
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Moderator (possibly from Sotheby's or Intelligence Squared)
Well, look, let's dive in. As I say, we've got lots to get through. All the items we're going to be discussing this evening do feature in this book. But I should say that we've not chosen them for their monetary values because they've all. I mean, the selection criteria for the book was not monetary value or even just their stories. It was because in one way or another, they've all entered this kind of collective consciousness. So we've asked our panel to select a few items from within and to speak on them a little. I think, Czar, we've got you up first and you're speaking about the Scream.
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Zahr Sturgis
So we're going to talk about quite a few images. I would say the Scream is the only bona fide icon that we're actually going to talk about. I mean, this is one of those images that has absolutely left the world for another place. But of course, is this the one. I mean, this is the one that broke the auction record. Absolutely. But it's not the only version of the. The Scream that Munch produced. And Munch is unusual as an artist in that he. I mean, not that unusual, but for this time, I think unusual that he revisited these sort of iconic images that he had made over and over again. But what's interesting about them is that when you are in front of any one of them, it's not quite the Scream. They're not. None of them are quite the Scream in our minds. Because of course, the Scream is more than this image. I don't think there's an. Is there another artwork that is also an emoji?
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Moderator (possibly from Sotheby's or Intelligence Squared)
Exactly. Two emojis inspired by it. And as we have behind us here, it's had sort of echoes across other artists work. Is that part of the reason that it stood out?
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Grayson Perry
The composition is also cle. I mean, I love Byzantine icons. You know, they're one of my favorite sorts of artwork. And it's got that figure in the frame you know, dead central kind of thing like that. So it has got that iconic power as it literally is an icon, isn't it?
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Zahr Sturgis
And it also stands for so much more than it is, so that, you know, it is now the quintessential expressionist image. It is, you know, it's historically a really significant image, and it's been stolen twice, or two different ones have been, you know, and if you want to become an icon, that's very important. So it's. History has played that game as well.
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Moderator (possibly from Sotheby's or Intelligence Squared)
All right, so maybe that's a yardstick that will be referring to. As we go through. I know this is another one of your choices. It's actually the earliest item we're going to be discussing this evening. We're going to be moving sort of chronologically through Raphael's head of a young apostle.
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Grayson Perry
Why?
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Moderator (possibly from Sotheby's or Intelligence Squared)
Why did you choose this?
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Zahr Sturgis
Well, I chose this because it's not an icon at all. It's actually why I chose it. I mean, it's a fantastic. It's one of the world's greatest drawings. There's no question about that. Raphael, arguably the supreme draftsman, and this were one of his supreme drawings. It's in a series. The other reason I chose it is that another drawing in this series, arguably not even. Arguably, an even better drawing in this series is at the Ashmolean Museum. The head and hands in the Ashmolean sort of literature, it says it has been described as, you know, the greatest drawing by the greatest draftsman. It's only been described by that, by Ashmolean curators. But these are these astonishing drawings that Raphael made for the last work that he. Well, he didn't actually finish, but the Transfiguration, which is in the Vatican. And what's astonishing about these drawings is that they are so much more interesting and greater than the painting for which they were made. And the amount of looking and thinking and working and just the joy of the doing of the drawing is clearly more than was required for a preparatory drawing for a painting.
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Moderator (possibly from Sotheby's or Intelligence Squared)
Yes. Well, when we sold this, I think we really felt it was perhaps the greatest Italian Renaissance drawing to come to market for decades at that point. Which leads me to want to ask Grayson, you know, are you at all being persuaded that the idea that maybe singular quality is. Is a merit?
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Grayson Perry
It's not a category of art that I find myself looking at very often.
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Moderator (possibly from Sotheby's or Intelligence Squared)
You know, there is an issue of subjectivity to all of this as well.
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Grayson Perry
Then it's all about. I hate to tell you this, it's all about subjectivity. You Know, it's like the way you talk about this is the. This is. In your opinion, or, you know, obviously, there's a collective opinion over time of curators that kind of give status to artworks. We don't want to go into that now, but, you know, you can question it and go, yeah, it's okay. It's a nice, realistic drawing, well done, Raphael. But this sort of idea that things are sublime, you know, immediately I kind of start curdling. He starts curdling in my. I want. You know.
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Moderator (possibly from Sotheby's or Intelligence Squared)
Yes, well, look, on subjectivity. I know that Helena has chosen her first object because it's an item very close to your heart. We've got the violin.
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Helena Newman
Well, we talked about Stradivarius, and here we have one that I've actually played. So I'm presenting an icon that I've actually had a chance to play. And I think that this is most of the. Most of the pieces we're going to talk about today are works of art, paintings. But actually, this is quite an interesting angle on. Is it an icon? Is it an instrument? Is there something really special about it? If you ask any person in the street, the most famous violin, they're going to say a Strad, even if they've never played one or heard one. But what's so special about it? And he made hundreds. Hundreds of which several hundred still exist. And, you know, was it something about his changing of the form because he flattens the arch and creates this beautiful, brilliant, golden sound. And why could no one else. Why could nobody copy it? And of course, now, with 3D printing, you could copy exactly. Exactly everything. But would it sound the same? And if it doesn't, why doesn't it? Is it because we imagine that the sound is different because it's played by someone who's playing a straddling?
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Grayson Perry
There's a short story about. I'll try and paraphrase it. A guy is in a dining club in Japan, and they serve him up this fish. And they're all looking at him while he's eating the fish. And they say, what was it like? He said it was a bit bland. And he said, you're the first person that's ever eaten it knowing. Not knowing that it might kill you. And of course, we all say it's delicious because we know it might kill us. And that's what I mean is, if you didn't know it was Stradivarius, would you go, it's a bit meh.
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Helena Newman
Well, anyway, I played it. I thought it was. I thought under my ear. I thought it was amazing, the best violin I've ever played. But it also has talking what makes an icon. It has that element of mystery, because there are all these theories about whether or not Strad invented some special type of varnish that was the secret to this golden sound that nobody's ever been able to copy.
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Zahr Sturgis
And just back to the Messiah, because what's sort of extraordinary about that violin is its preservation because it's never been played or barely ever been played, which seems such an absurd. And so when I arrived at the museum, I thought, this is horrible, this instrument trapped in this glass case. And I airily suggested that maybe we should get it out and play it. And the violin sort of mafia descended upon me and explained in a state of panic why it really should never be played. And their argument was that there are, as you say, hundreds of Strads out there that are played. There is only one which has barely ever been played. And so the varnish, for what it's worth, is completely intact. And you can see that it is. So it is more or less in the condition in which it left Strad's workshop. But we don't know what it sounds like.
- [15:42]
Moderator (possibly from Sotheby's or Intelligence Squared)
Well, look, I have, for one of my choices, because I've indulged in a few myself, I've chosen something of great economic value. We sold this. It's the first printed edition of the U.S. constitution, and we sold it in 2021. The estimate was 15 to 20 million dollars. It went on to sell for more than 43 million dollars. You know, I'm throwing in something certainly very high value, but I also like the idea of it because it's a living document. Obviously it was the recorded, you know, beautifully typeset, finalized version of the Constitution, but of course it continues to guide the US today and all the kind of interesting political territory that that represents. So is. Is being an icon something about maintaining a contemporary relevance, I wonder.
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Grayson Perry
Yeah, I mean, you wonder if Pokemon cards are going to be worth those millions in a few years time, don't you?
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Helena Newman
But this definitely had contemporary rele. Because one thing that was interesting about this sale was the crowdfunded underbidder. So the direct underbidder was something called a dao. Basically, thousands and thousands of people signed up with crypto, because of course, this was in 2021, which was the crypto mania year, and organized themselves to be the direct underbidders on the slab.
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Moderator (possibly from Sotheby's or Intelligence Squared)
Well, look, we've got another example which is about again, recognizabilities are. This is one of yours, the seurat
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Zahr Sturgis
this reminds us of an icon. And what I do like about it is, I mean, say this is Seurat, the Grand Jatte, but the Grande Jatte without the cast of characters.
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Grayson Perry
It's Wednesday in the park with George, isn't it?
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Zahr Sturgis
Exactly. Waiting for the Parisians to descend. And I suppose you cannot look at it without imagining those individuals arriving, which was not. Well, we don't know Seurat's intention when he painted it, but I don't. You know, that clearly wasn't what he was imagining when he painted it, or imagining that it would be viewed as when he painted it, because his larger picture had not assumed the status that it has now. I mean, one of the interesting things about the big picture, in terms of what makes it iconic, you can recognize it by its profile. I mean, it's sort of. It has. Those pictures that do slip the bounds of the museum are there is something about what they look like that is really important, that they need to be sort of graphically sort of straightforward in some respects.
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Grayson Perry
I think a big part of what we find beautiful is familiarity as well. And so when we've been fed an image time and time and time and time and time again through books and history and references, it's sort of, you know, we are very susceptible to the familiarity.
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Zahr Sturgis
And so Munch stands for expressionism. Sunday Afternoon stands for divisionism, pointillism. No one's seen it unless they've been to Chicago. No living person has seen that painting unless they've been to Chicago. It now just doesn't leave the gallery. So most people, even though they're fantastically familiar with the image, have not ever seen it except in Ferris Buller's Day off or in reproduction.
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Moderator (possibly from Sotheby's or Intelligence Squared)
Helena, you've chosen another work by a very iconic artist. Tell us about this.
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Helena Newman
Well, this, I think, look, this is this Van Gogh Irises that we sold at Sotheby's in 1987 made the then world record prize for Van Gogh. It made the world record prize for any work of art. It was a sort of sensation at the time. And obviously it's instantly recognizable. I think it is to most people as Van Gogh. It's the explosion of color and energy and the composition bursting out, out of the seams. But it also became iconic. I put this in as. It's one of those ones that I think became iconic also because of the story coming from Whitney Payson, but bought by Alan Bond, who was the notorious Australian kind of financier who went belly up and a huge scandal broke out after the sale when it became apparent that Sotheby's had actually lent him money to pay for the painting because he'd lost his money between the hammer falling and having to pay up. And this only became apparent if you think back, 87 was just a few weeks after the Black Friday October, and so there was massive financial crisis going on, and yet the art market was still going up at that point.
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Grayson Perry
And
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Helena Newman
after this sort of rearrangement of his financing, the painting was quietly sold off by Sotheby's. Quietly is maybe not the right word, because it went to the Getty, and the Getty now owns this painting. So this has become famous in both senses because of its record, the scandal. And you see it in the museum.
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Grayson Perry
I think it's, you know, iconic of shenanigans in the sale room. But I wouldn't say it's scandal. I wouldn't say it's iconic as a van Gogh, because I. It's. It's not one. If you. If you ask most people, they have a good. Fairly represented. That's not in their top 10. Van Gogh.
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Helena Newman
No. They will have the bandaged ear, you know, like one in the Courtauld or the Starry Night. They're all in museums. So we, within the context of this conversation of what we've sold, it was famous for being van Gogh.
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Grayson Perry
It was a huge story at the time. I remember that. Yeah.
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Moderator (possibly from Sotheby's or Intelligence Squared)
And, Helena, you've chosen two picasses. I know. Next. He's an artist we would have to have discussed as part of this conversation, tell us the story of each.
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Helena Newman
So. Well, actually, to Grayson's point, I mean, you don't necessarily look at this and immediately think Picasso, when in the sort of canon of everything that's to come, this is one of his earliest works. It actually predates, just by a few months, the Blue Period. So he just arrived in Paris, but he inscribes on it still in Spanish, Yo Picasso, Mi Picasso. And it's this kind of. I love it for its kind of exploit. It's like the explosion of Picasso onto the art world. It's like, here I am. He's sort of looking back maybe at some of the great bravura portraits. And he's a young man here, barely known. He's just about, you know, to have his first exhibition with Ambroise Voila in Paris. And yet he already has that confidence of an artist thinking of everything that's going to happen.
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Grayson Perry
I think it is. This is a good contender for an icon, I think, because Picasso was so prolific, you Know, and there's a few very, very famous ones. But this, you know, I do. I've seen this painting and it is paid, do you remember, of Picasso.
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Helena Newman
Yeah, you've seen it in Zurich. Probably it's on loan now in Zurich. But also maybe from the images, because the. He stares, that sort of expression.
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Moderator (possibly from Sotheby's or Intelligence Squared)
And again, it was a market moment. Helena, I've got it here. $47.8 million in 1989. And how does your next choice compare again? I think rather high value.
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Helena Newman
Yeah, well, this came from the Whitney Payson collection. This was for a very, very long time, the world record price for any work of art at auction selling for, I think, $104 million in 1990. But I think this is quite interesting because quite a few of the images that we've looked at have been very kind of bold and strong. This has got an enigmatic ambiguity to it. And Picasso's painted one of the sort of waifs and strays of the bohemian worlds that he associated with at the Battle of Oix. And, you know, it's one of why he's called Le Petit Louis. And apparently the painting was just lying. The canvas was just lying in there, the studio, for several months. And one night he comes back and looks at it and picks it up again and paints on this garland of roses or whatever flowers they are. And somehow that garland transforms the painting, I think, into more of an iconic style. It kind of makes the painting. It suddenly makes this figure more of.
- [23:31]
Grayson Perry
It's like. Well, he makes it into a king or a saint or something.
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Helena Newman
Exactly.
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Grayson Perry
So it's therefore, it has a more iconic quality, literally, in the proper sense
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Helena Newman
of the word, holding this pipe, but it's facing outwards. So there's also this ambiguity that maybe it's almost like this is Picasso himself as his alter ego, but he's both painting the boy and painting him in the image of this saint, like young man gaining youth.
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Moderator (possibly from Sotheby's or Intelligence Squared)
To Grayson's point, I think systems of symbols are often a key part of icons, going back to the Byzantine examples and those truly religious examples.
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Zahr Sturgis
Yeah.
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Grayson Perry
And having a kind of iconography that everybody understood and could read into and be satisfied by and not be mystified by some teenage obscurantism.
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Helena Newman
And this again, has all those other market elements, Rarity Rose period, you know, very rarely seen great provenance, all of that.
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Zahr Sturgis
And he's been given wings as well, hasn't he?
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Helena Newman
Wings. Wings of garlands, of roses. Yes.
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Zahr Sturgis
Yeah.
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Moderator (possibly from Sotheby's or Intelligence Squared)
No, Helen, Another choice of yours, Klimt.
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Helena Newman
I mean, this is another example where you've got the iconic status of an artist as a whole and then you've got an individual work and how that benefits from people's wider knowledge of an artist. I always think with Klimt, the most famous images are never gonna come to auction. They're the golden block bower, the kiss that people have as posters in their teenage rooms and, you know, reproduced on cushion covers and chocolate boxes. But we've actually been privileged at somebody's to sell recently two great Klimt works. This work that we offered in 2023 that made a then world record of over $100 million and absolutely captured the imagination of many bidders and was furiously competed for. And then only two years later, just now in New York, we sold the beautiful portrait of Elizabeth Lederer that I'm sure you will follow. Made a new world record of $236 million. And that was interesting because the portrait wasn't known at all really widely before we offered it. And by the end of the viewing we had thousands of people queuing around the blocks at the briar to see this painting, to become an icon in the process of the marketing of the painting.
- [25:47]
Grayson Perry
But it's also in an artist who paints similar looking images.
- [25:51]
Helena Newman
Yes.
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Grayson Perry
Which look incredibly like icons. Because I'm always slightly kind of suspicious of artists who sort of bang out the same artwork again and again and again. It's a great tactic because it just means that every museum gets a representative sample and every collector can buy something that you put on the wall and people go, I know what that is. That's a Klimt, you know, even if they know nothing about art. And so it's a tactic used by artists, you know, from the year dot. So if you can, if you can tick all the boxes by doing an icon looking work and you become an icon and then you bang out a load of paintings that look vaguely similar, you're in icon heaven then, aren't you?
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Zahr Sturgis
But in the case of Clint, I mean, obviously there's a very clear signature style, but he's not banging out loads of. I mean there is the rarity element
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Grayson Perry
as well compared to Raphael.
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Helena Newman
So you had to be pretty wealthy to commission a portrait of. By Klimt.
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Zahr Sturgis
Yes. Whereas I mean, there are obviously many portrait painters over the years who really have banged, you know, have banged them out.
- [26:48]
Helena Newman
But going back to the icon status, the tall portrait of Elizabeth Nader, when people came to see it, there was that sort of element almost like, of approaching a Madonna like icon in the gallery. That sense of Approaching it and then the viewing and the. It was quite an experience to see and actually fascinating because in the pre sale process we were also offering another very iconic piece, which was Catalan's Golden Toilet. But it's quite interesting because the iconic status of these two objects flipped during that 10 day viewing. And we thought people would queue for the golden toilet and they were queuing for the clids.
- [27:26]
Moderator (possibly from Sotheby's or Intelligence Squared)
Yes. Zahr, you have chosen an artwork that we think is one of the most reproduced images in recorded history. I don't have a metric for that, but it's an interesting idea and I'd love to know why you chose it.
- [27:36]
Zahr Sturgis
Well, for the same sort of reason. And it's such a brilliant thing. I won't say image because it's playing with the very idea of image. I mean, so this is obviously Magritte CE si n' est pain pipe. This is not a pipe. Isn't it? But then, of course, no, it isn't. And so there are so many paradoxes and games I think, at play within this picture or within this object. It's not a pipe because it's a picture of a pipe. It's the simplest answer to the question, but it is. There's more going on. I think it's a perfect pipe. And I don't think that sort of the nature of the pipiness of the pipe is talked about enough. I mean, it's a sort of Platonic ideal of a pipe. And of course, the Platonic ideal does not exist. It's a dream of a pipe. So it's not a pipe because it's more than a pipe. It's the most pipey pipe one could possibly imagine. But then, of course, he's playing with words and images and he wrote about the difference of words and images, and he wrote about the fact that the substance of a word and an image in a painting is the same. They're made of the same thing. And yet we look at the image and the word in a completely different way. And so I do wonder as well whether we shouldn't be thinking whether it's a sea. This is not a pipe. So the word this isn't a pipe either. Why we think we're talking about the image at all is a question. And again, in the same way that the Grande Jatte stands for quantalism, the Munch stands for expressionism, this stands perhaps with the persistence of Memory by Dali, for surrealism.
- [29:19]
Grayson Perry
I think it's an icon to make middle class people feel clever, because it's sort of like there's nothing like a reference. So people could say, you'll be shuffling around with your friend around the ark going like, oh, yeah, see what this says here? It's not a pipe because that means. And then you'll be able to explain it, you know, but it's not as an image. It's sort of like, you know, it's very, very famous and it has a certain graphic. You know, it's like an advert almost. It's like an advert for sixth form philosophy.
- [29:48]
Moderator (possibly from Sotheby's or Intelligence Squared)
Yeah.
- [29:48]
Helena Newman
But it is an icon in all those senses that it's instantly recognizable. And then Magritte himself returns. He's one of those artists who then he makes these recognizable images and then he goes back again and again and reproduces within his own artistry and plays with that like he does with the bowler. Ha.
- [30:06]
Zahr Sturgis
And absolutely uses the techniques of advertising as well. You know, he's playing.
- [30:12]
Grayson Perry
It's an iconic image in surrealism. But if you ask me what your top 10 Magrittes, it wouldn't be one of them.
- [30:18]
Helena Newman
Bowler hat. I would put above that if you had it as in terms of just instantly recognizable for Magritte.
- [30:25]
Moderator (possibly from Sotheby's or Intelligence Squared)
Yes. Well, look, I don't want anyone to think we've been neglecting Grayson's choices.
- [30:29]
Grayson Perry
I chose four and two of them I hate, and two of them I like.
- [30:32]
Moderator (possibly from Sotheby's or Intelligence Squared)
I'm looking forward to it. But we've been moving chronologically and yours are all clustered in quite a narrow window. But just before we come to that, Helena, your third and final, I think, Picasso. Tell us why.
- [30:43]
Helena Newman
Well, I think that because we looked at the too early Picasso's. I think you need in this conversation one of those Picassos that is even more instantly recognizable, the female subject, which again you associate with Picasso, going back to this whole iconic, you know, placing the woman as this almost Madonna like figure in the composition. This is Marie Therese. This is from 1932, known as the Golden Year, was the subject of an exhibition entirely devoted to that year. So important was its scene in Picasso's oeuvre, this sort of explosion of the revelation of his young lover, Marie Therese, onto the art scene. And when he finally shows these portraits he's painted of her for the first time just a year later in 1933, and everybody realizes who she is. And here she is, Marie Therese, wearing this watch, almost like a reference to the secrecy of their affair and the stolen time.
- [31:39]
Moderator (possibly from Sotheby's or Intelligence Squared)
Very interesting. Grayson, you're up. Kahlo, talk to us.
- [31:43]
Grayson Perry
When I was young and I was a student and I used to quite like Frida Kahlo you know, And I went to an exhibition in the 80s, some point I was in America, and I happened to be in this Texan university, and they had, like, a big exhibition, which there's not many paintings to go around. And they had. Must have had 20 paintings in this show. And I was like, wow, I like Frida Kahlo. Then Frida Kahlo became Frida Kahlo. I mean, I even visited her house in Mexico City, you know, and I thought I was a bit of a fan of Frida Kahlo, you know, but then, of course, she was. She became this sort of poster girl for a certain sort of artist, you know, it was the sort of, you know, Madonna bought one. I chose this because it's her as an artist represented somebody who went, in my mind, went through this process of iconization, and I felt the pleasure in the work drain out of me because I'm such a snob.
- [32:34]
Moderator (possibly from Sotheby's or Intelligence Squared)
Is this the root of the problem?
- [32:36]
Grayson Perry
When I was four years old, my mother had sex with the milkman, which caused my parents to divide. And if you're of a certain age, that used to be a musical joke, you know, oh, you're very friendly with them. So I grew up traumatized by a cliche. So therefore, if anything has a sniff of becoming sort of tawdry, common, too popular, populist, iconic, I immediately say, I'm out. So this is why I wanted to do this talk this evening, because it touches on a very tender, personal journey for me. By the way, if anybody's interested in musicals, I've written a musical, and I've written one song in the musical which is called Nobody gets you. And it's somebody telling me that because I don't have a gimmick. And one of the lines is Frieda with her mono brown.
- [33:23]
Helena Newman
You see? So she is an icon.
- [33:24]
Grayson Perry
Yeah, she is. Oh, no, I'm under absolutely no doubt in the way we're framing it today. She's one of the most iconic because she's got. She had the look, she's got the life story, all the ingredients. She's perfect.
- [33:36]
Moderator (possibly from Sotheby's or Intelligence Squared)
Zahn, what do you think about this one?
- [33:37]
Zahr Sturgis
So I completely understand what Grayson's saying. I worry for him and his art, the worry about becoming an icon because one's not in control of this. And yet it absolutely does change the way in which you see things. And things can become completely invisible in pure view.
- [33:54]
Grayson Perry
When people used to come up to me and they'd go, I love your work, Grayson, I always used to ask them, oh, which One. And they could never name one. They never can name one. And so I think I'm safe from becoming iconic.
- [34:04]
Moderator (possibly from Sotheby's or Intelligence Squared)
So, look, Grayson, you're getting both, you know, potential therapeutic services and maybe some PR management here. But tell us about the next one you've chosen.
- [34:12]
Grayson Perry
Well, this. I liked, Norman Rockwell. I think he's sort of like. He's sort of. He occupies a sort of similar base maybe to Lowry in some sort of ways. You know, he's. A lot of people look down on him and he's. He has painted quite a few iconic images, particularly of Americana and roses. I like that. You've got. This is 1943. You know, this could be a kind of second wave feminist image almost. You know, it's a fantastic image because the model he used got really offended because he chunked her up quite a lot. He really beefed her up. But it's great. I mean, and her sort of look and then her foot on the mein camp and it's such a nice. And of course, I'm always with the underdog, which are decorativeness and illustrativeness. You know, these are things that are often looked down upon by art. When I was at college, decoration was a swear word and illustrative was a swear word because of the fetishism for splashy paint, of which we will get onto in a minute, what I call white man spunk. Anyway, this paint, you know, it's incredibly skillful painting. And he was really good because she doesn't look anything like the model. He really knew what happened. That sort of disdain and everything. And of course, Rosie the Riveter as a concept, as an idea, was iconic within the wartime history.
- [35:21]
Moderator (possibly from Sotheby's or Intelligence Squared)
The power of the icon being leveraged, in this case, for political purposes. Yeah, well, here we go.
- [35:26]
Grayson Perry
It's another one I like. I chose this. Cause it's almost like the opposite way round in that I'm not a great fan of Calder, but I saw this. I like that because it doesn't look like a typical Calder, you know, and it's quite an early one and it looks like outsider art. If you'd have told me this, and I'm a big fan of outsider art, so this has almost been de. Iconized for me. Because if you'd have shown me a typical, you know, mobile bike holder, I'd have gone, meh. You know, because, you know, it's like one of those artworks that you sort of see and you're way up. Whereas this. I looked at it and thought, yeah, because it had a freshness to me. And A lot of the things in the, in the book I hadn't seen before. And that, you know, for me, vibrancy, freshness, novelty is such a hugely intrinsic part when I like something.
- [36:09]
Zahr Sturgis
But absolutely the opposite of an icon. I mean, that's a problem, isn't it?
- [36:13]
Helena Newman
Yes, it's not iconic, but it's a great piece.
- [36:15]
Moderator (possibly from Sotheby's or Intelligence Squared)
Well, look, your last choice, I think
- [36:17]
Grayson Perry
Grayson Rothko, he's the kind of icon of. Tom Wolfe, wrote a book, the Painted Words. He wrote it in the early 70s. I think it was really influential on me when I was a student. And he talks about standing in this gallery looking at. I don't think it was a Rothko. I think it might have been a Clifford Steel or something like that. And he would say, waiting for it to happen, right. And he stood there for ages and ages waiting for it to happen and it never did. And Abstract Expressionism for me represents that kind of paint fetishism tainted with machismo. You know, he is an icon, but it's a sort of miserableist, vaguely spiritually. I've been to the chapel. One of my favorite quotes from a bishop that I saw taught once and he said, yeah, people always coming up to me and saying, I'm not religious, but I've got a very strong spiritual side. And his reply was always, I'm not spiritual, but I've got a very strong religious side. And I thought he nailed it. That sort of vague tosh, you know, all that gong bath nonsense. Rothko is the patron saint of it, really.
- [37:18]
Moderator (possibly from Sotheby's or Intelligence Squared)
But look, this, this is an artist that arrived at an absolutely. A signature style. How does that play into the dynamic here?
- [37:25]
Grayson Perry
Well, I don't like those painters that just knock it out. I mean, I've got a big thing. I'm running a campaign at the moment called Just Stop Oil Painting. Because I think painting is over privileged within art history massively. When I did my show at the British Museum 10 years ago, you know, it was a global encyclopedic museum of culture and art. Hardly any paintings in it. Painting is so. Because the west, you know, European Western tradition of painting, most creativity in the world is not painting, but. And yet there's this idea in places like this because it's, you know, it's easy to sell, easy to move. You know, everybody knows what to do with a painting. It's become iconic as an art form.
- [38:03]
Moderator (possibly from Sotheby's or Intelligence Squared)
But Grayson, is there a craft icon you would point to?
- [38:06]
Grayson Perry
There's so many other things, you know, there's so many other forms of art, visual art, but Painting is often sort of held up as synonymous with being an artist. You know, they say, what sort of paintings do you do? No, that's when I say I'm an artist. They go, what's up? I said, I've never done a fucking painting since I left art college because it's white man spunk, goo on a stick. I mean, some of my favorite artworks are paintings, don't get me wrong. But I think it's time to just stop oil painting.
- [38:31]
Moderator (possibly from Sotheby's or Intelligence Squared)
You heard it here first.
- [38:32]
Grayson Perry
Let it. Let you be the first people to hear. My campaign is opening now.
- [38:37]
Moderator (possibly from Sotheby's or Intelligence Squared)
Now, some of you might be surprised that it's taken us this long to get to Warhol. Helena, this is one of your choices.
- [38:44]
Helena Newman
I mean, I had to insert this. I didn't think we could have a whole conversation about icons and not have this fusion of, you know, Marilyn Monroe and Warhol, two of the most famous icons. I mean, it has to be in here.
- [38:57]
Grayson Perry
Got a gold background. It's of a goddess, and it's by. Painted by a devout Catholic.
- [39:03]
Helena Newman
Everything is there. You know, there's sort of, you know, the worship of the fame, the instant recognition, the beauty.
- [39:10]
Grayson Perry
I agree with you. I think it probably is one of, if not the most iconic artwork in the book. But I think he. He knew exactly what he was doing.
- [39:17]
Moderator (possibly from Sotheby's or Intelligence Squared)
Well, look indulgently, I've chosen the final two objects, but I'd love. I'd love the panel's thoughts on them. And to your point about non art objects, Grayson, actually, I'd love to hear your thoughts on this. This is a set of faux pearls that belonged to Jackie Kennedy. And we, as some people will know, sold Jackie's collection in the 90s. And it was this groundbreaking sale at Sotheby's, New York. We had queues around the block. The estimate on these was 5 to $700. They're faux pearls. They're not rupearls. And they sold for over $200,000. And not only that, and we think the reason that they did so well is that she was wearing them in a photo in which she had a young John F. Kennedy Jr. Bouncing on her knees. It was part of the icon of the personality of. Or perhaps the other way around. But the buyer of these then commissioned reproductions of the faux pearls and sold them. And this lady who ran an American company, Franklin Mint, that made replicas, made millions of dollars selling replicas of faux pearls. What does that tell us about this whole state of affairs?
- [40:23]
Helena Newman
Didn't she then donate this particular one?
- [40:26]
Moderator (possibly from Sotheby's or Intelligence Squared)
She did in the end having, you know, started a very nice business. They're now in the Smithsonian.
- [40:31]
Grayson Perry
We're talking really about a very religious subject tonight. And these are what you would call a second level relic.
- [40:38]
Moderator (possibly from Sotheby's or Intelligence Squared)
Go on, unpack. What are we talking?
- [40:40]
Grayson Perry
The first level relic would be one that is, you know, the actual part of the Saint. So if it's Jackie Onassis hair or some blood or something, you know, that would be a first level relic. This is like something that's touched the Saint. And so it's. And a lot of memorabilia in a way is connected to that, you know, and the whole signature thing and the selfie thing is all because we live in a world that is shaped by our religious instincts. I mean, art galleries are basically temples. You go to a special place to see a special thing, you make a pilgrimage to it. You know, these are absolutely fundamental to being human religion. It wasn't an accident. It's almost part of evolution.
- [41:18]
Helena Newman
I couldn't agree more. It is. It's that people queued to come and touch or get as close as they could. And if they couldn't touch the necklace, they wanted to put their fingers against the lips of Jackie O in a beautiful photograph. It's totally about the connection.
- [41:34]
Grayson Perry
I mean, it's fascinating. It's fascinating that these very, very primal instincts are still going on with Pokemon cards or whatever. You know, it's like it's people, you know, that will continue to do it.
- [41:46]
Zahr Sturgis
But the idea that you're selling copies of it because you're there, you're on your third degree relic by then, obviously, that is. Yes, you're vial of the dust, dusted from the top of the tomb of the dead saint.
- [42:00]
Grayson Perry
I think someone should make a copy out of real pearls. That would be a very 70s artwork, wouldn't it? All conceptual art. Look at me.
- [42:07]
Moderator (possibly from Sotheby's or Intelligence Squared)
Well, look, we've already mentioned him once this evening. Our final item for the evening, Maurizio Catalan's comedian sold at Sotheby's in 2024 over $6 million. And it really was a global event. I'm sure everyone saw the coverage. I chose it, I think, because I wanted to discuss ideas of mater and material value. Because this, as anyone doesn't know, really is a banana taped to the wall. And Helen, you mentioned Catalan was also the artist that had produced the gold in lavatory. Solid gold 24 garret. So he's working at two ends of kind of material value. What are we to understand?
- [42:44]
Helena Newman
The golden toilet in the end sold for exactly its gold value, which is very, very High at the moment. So I don't think there was a dollar more than its gold value on the night of the sale, which I don't think reflected very well on Maurizio Catalan. And this sul $6,000,000 for a banana that you can replace whenever you want
- [43:01]
Grayson Perry
was the sale of stunt.
- [43:02]
Helena Newman
The whole thing is entirely conceptual. And I think in the New York Times the next day, didn't it say, who's laughing now? Or something? And the whole thing is just performance art.
- [43:10]
Moderator (possibly from Sotheby's or Intelligence Squared)
The other thing we should say is, I think it exists in an edition of three, I believe. And one of them famously went on exhibition in a public gallery. Someone came along, a performance artist whose name I'd forgotten, and ate the banana. So that's a double. A double layer again.
- [43:23]
Grayson Perry
As someone, you know. Anybody that's sort of been to art school in the last 50 years, it's quite a lame. When I was at college, there was a guy who made a little box and it said two buttons. Is this art? Yes. No. And it just had little counters. Did you put it? And it was fun, it was clever. But this sort of artwork, you know, it's been around. It's vintage now, isn't it? Those kind of like, oh, what is art?
- [43:45]
Zahr Sturgis
It does become something simply because someone. Someone bought it for $6 million. I mean, that's. Without that fact, it wouldn't be any sort of icon at all.
- [43:58]
Grayson Perry
I remember it coming up when he sort of first did it, and it was sort of like within the art world, it was sort of like, oh, here goes Mauricio again. And then when it sold, though, it became a different thing.
- [44:07]
Zahr Sturgis
I think it's still a different thing. Having sold for $6 million. I mean, it would be interesting to see what happens when it is next sold.
- [44:14]
Moderator (possibly from Sotheby's or Intelligence Squared)
I think an interesting element of his icons is sometimes they do fade away. We've covered a lot that, you know, the ones that are currently enduring. But it's an interesting question.
- [44:22]
Grayson Perry
Do you ever do stuff about negative equity in the artwork world?
- [44:25]
Moderator (possibly from Sotheby's or Intelligence Squared)
Do you know, it's not. It's not a hot topic.
- [44:27]
Helena Newman
There are all sorts of very tried and tested euphemisms we use, like, it may be best. Hold on to it for now.
- [44:33]
Moderator (possibly from Sotheby's or Intelligence Squared)
I do want to offer my thanks to. To the panel, to Segregation Perry, to Zar Sturgis and Helen Newman, and to you all for coming this evening.
- [44:43]
Connor Boyle
Thanks for listening. That was an episode of Sotheby's. Talks from Sotheby's and Intelligence Squared. To listen to more episodes, just search. So the Beast talks wherever you get your podcasts?