Programme Details

The cultural critic Marjorie Garber said that culture couldn't exist without transvestism. Her study of cross dressing contributed in the 1990s to the rise of gender studies as an academic discipline and brought this hidden history to the fore. Now Turner prize winning potter Grayson Perry presents a television documentary which puts his central experience as Clare centre stage - as well as other men who express their feminine side by dressing in women's clothes . But why do they resort to dress to do this? Is it because gender is in crises in our society? And how can Grayson Perry claim that transvestites in our culture are the guardians of feminine dress and without them it would be endangered? He joins Susan Hitch and the cultural historian of cross dressing Julie Wheelwright to discuss how dress - and address - the gender divide.

The film director Wes Anderson is a man no less interested in dress than Grayson Perry. From the tracksuited dysfunctional family of The Royal Tanenbaums, to the frog suited (and marched) oceanic explorers of his latest film A Life Aquatic, clothes are just as claustrophobic and constraining as the human psyche. In A Life Aquatic, his latest incarnation of the dominating father is played by Bill Murray who is a Jacques Cousteau-like oceanic explorer with his handpicked family of misfits. That is until a man claiming to be his son, turns up. Wes Anderson reveals that this obsession with fathers and sons is one he can not shake off, and reveals his love for and the influence of French film makers Jean Renoir and Francois Truffaut on his film making and fascination for the deep blue seas of the human psyche.

The artist Tacita Dean has been described as an archivist of the memory. With works such as her film The Green Ray which explores the connections between Jules Verne to Marcel Duchamp and the French film maker Eric Rohmer, or Teignmouth Electron which uncovered the narrative of a doomed sea crossing, she reveals the layers of memory and meaning in our culture. It is an obsession for her. She's now, as ever eschewed the traditional artists' way, and is curating a national touring exhibition in which her own work doesn't feature but in which her psyche with ecelectic connections does. Instead the exhibition features works by other major artists such as Gerard Richter and Kurt Schwitters . The exhibition is modestly called An Aside. Tacita Dean reveals the hand of Marcel Duchamp behind her choices - as well as the inspiration of her newly born child as she takes Susan Hitch and you for a sneak preview walk around the exhibition.

And in Russia, with the news that a pianist has been sacked for playing a 1930s song, we discover how music hasn't lost its power to be political even in the new Russia.

That's all in Night Waves with Susan Hitch here on BBC Radio 3 at 9.30pm.






Presenter: Susan Hitch
Producer: Ariane Koek




Additional information:
1) A Life Aquatic by Wes Andersen opens nationwide from this Friday
2) A Dream Play by August Strindberg is at the National Theatre from February 17th until May 15th A Dream Play and runs concurrently with the exhibition August Strindberg, at Tate Modern.
www.nt-online.org
3) An Aside - curated by Tacita Dean is on at the Camden Arts Centre from 18th February until 1st May and then goes on tour to The Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh 14 May - 17 July 2005 and the Glynn Vivian Gallery, Swansea 1 October - 27 November 2005
4) Why Men Wear Frocks presented by Grayson Perry is on Channel 4 on Wednesday 16th February at 21.00