Perry lambasts Hirst in art lecture

The transvestite potter, 53, who is set to deliver the BBC Reith Lectures later this month, said the “phenomenally successful” Leeds artist was playing “a good game”.

Asked to name the artworks he most disliked, Perry placed Hirst’s The Physical Impossibility Of Death In The Mind Of Someone Living – in which a shark is suspended in formaldehyde – at the top of his list.

Leeds-educated artist Hirst’s solo exhibition at Tate Modern last year, complete with a rotting cow’s head and a diamond-encrusted human skull, was the most popular solo show in the gallery’s history, attracting about 463,000 visitors.

But Perry said: “Hirst is very famous, incredibly rich and successful and he’s played a good game.

“He’s pulled off his masterstrokes again and again.

“They’re iconic examples of appropriation, but to an insider in the art world they’re hackneyed,” he added.

“They suffer from the Mona Lisa curse: when an artwork becomes incredibly famous it’s difficult to see it as an artwork. It becomes a cause celebre.”