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Playing to the Gallery: Helping contemporary art in its struggle to be understood

Playing to the Gallery: Helping contemporary art in its struggle to be understood

by Grayson Perry (Author)

  • Used

    Hardcover 2014

    $3.63
Synopsis

'It's easy to feel insecure around art and its appreciation, as though we cannot enjoy certain artworks if we don't have a lot of academic and historical knowledge. But if there's one message that I want you to take away it's that anybody can enjoy art and anybody can have a life in the arts - even me! For even I, an Essex transvestite potter, have been let in by the artworld mafia.' Now Grayson Perry is a fully paid-up member of the art establishment, he wants to show that any of us can appreciate art (after all, there is a reason he's called this book 'Playing to the Gallery' and not 'Sucking up to an Academic Elite'.) Based on his hugely popular Reith Lectures and full of words and pictures, this funny, personal journey through the art world answers the basic questions that might occur to us in an art gallery but seem too embarrassing to ask. Questions such as: What is 'good' or 'bad' art - and does it even matter? Is there any way to test if something is art, other than a large group of people standing around looking at it? Is art still capable of shocking us or have we seen it all before? Can you be a 'lovable character' and a serious artist - what is a serious artist anyway? And what happens if you place a piece of art in a rubbish dump?

$3.63

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Quantity

2 in stock

More Information

Format: Hardcover
 Pages: 144
 Edition: 1st edition
 Publisher: Particular Books
Published: 04 Sep 2014
ISBN 10: 184614857X
ISBN 13: 9781846148576

Media Reviews
A visual and intellectual delight * Time Out *
Punchy, mischievous ... Hugely entertaining. You could, genuinely, take an aphorism or a quote from every second page ... This is splendid, transgressive stuff and a delight for the many Radio 4 listeners who responded enthusiastically [to Perry's Reith Lectures] ... In writing, he seeks to protect the personal in a deeply caustic art world, but in doing so also writes a love letter to art ... a thing of pleasure: petite, luxuriously printed, a mischievous little hymn to 21st-century inclusivity -- Melanie Reid * The Times *
This book is full of good jokes, full of cartoons, full of memorable epigrams, but above all full of thought-provoking ideas that make you want to pause on every page and say: Discuss. I have never read such a stimulating short guide to art. It should be issued as a set text in every school -- Lynn Barber * Sunday Times *
The book has [a] conversational tone and lively intelligence. Beautifully illustrated, it reveals Perry to be not just an artist but a wordsmith, too... This is writing with the eye of someone who says: 'My job is to notice things that other people don't notice.' It is full of insight, and of telling points... It is acute and funny at the same time. This, I think, is why people love Perry so much. He is really smart. He says the things we wish we had thought of, and asks the questions that we want to ask. What is art? How can we tell if what we are looking at is any good? Is it OK to like certain artists? * Daily Telegraph *
A joy to read * New Statesman *
A polemic for inclusivity... The great thing about Perry's statement of it here is that you are always convinced that he believes it and lives by it * Observer *
With great good humour he debunks distinctions between highbrow and low * Sunday Times, Books of the Year *
It's unputdownable! It's really relevant to anyone who does anything ... A great book ... Grayson is brilliant -- Stewart Lee
An unpretentious aesthetic treatise * Observer, Books of the Year *
Perry's fun and wonderful book is a necessary addition to a world that must continue to ask difficult questions of art * Publishers Weekly *
Author Bio
Grayson Perry's first art prize was a large papier-mache head he awarded to himself as part of a performance art project at college in 1980. Since then he has won many other awards, including the Turner Prize in 2003. He is now one of Britain's most celebrated artists and has had major solo exhibitions all over the world.