Grayson Perry: ‘There’s an awful lot of guff talked about art’

Artist Grayson Perry was commissioned to draw a series of pictures to illustrate his Reith Lectures on BBC Radio 4. Here he explains what they mean. If you missed his first Reith lecture you should take some time to listen, it is brilliant, interesting, funny and inciteful. As a prelude to his lecture series he produced this short video explaining that a lot of guff is talked about art

If you don’t know Grayson I would have to ask under which stone have you been living, he is now Britain’s most visible artist and an extraordinary person who doesn’t talk the usual art bs.

Earlier in the week I heard him on BBC Radio 4 Start the week, he said of art photography something like… art photography can be defined as needing to be at least 2m wide, priced in hundreds of thousands and in a limited edition of 5. I give you another look at Rhine2 the most expensive photograph ever sold, it is by Andreas Gursky

The power of photography: time, mortality and memory

In the Guardian there is a really interesting article featuring a selection of artists, writers and photographers showing a photograph and talking about it’s importance and the importance of photography to them.

We take thousands of pictures nowadays, but do we still cherish them? We asked writers and artists, including Grayson Perry and Mary McCartney, to pick a shot they treasure – and tell us the role photography has played in their lives

Grayson Perry in his Camden squat in 1985, making a Super 8 film

When I was about five, my mother made a bonfire in the back garden and burned a suitcase full of family photos taken by my father. He had been a keen photographer with his own dark room. I don’t know why she burned them, but it coincided with them getting divorced and my stepfather moving in.


For the rest of my childhood, no one in the family possessed a camera, so I have very few photographs of myself before art college. Family snaps are somehow celebratory of the good times so there was little motivation to record our lives. As soon as I could afford it, I bought a clunky Russian Zenith SLR….read more of what Grayson Perry and the other contributors say here

The Guardian has followed up this article with a space where mere mortals can share their most important pictures,

Photography – share your most precious photo

Share with us your most memorable photograph with a line to tell us what or who we are looking at and why the image is so special to you

You can do that here