The Reith Lectures by Grayson Perry

BBC Radio 4 are currently broadcasting 4 lectures about contemporary art by Turner Prize winner Grayson Perry. The lectures have been broadcast and are available to listen to on the iplayer here. They are a witty, accessible and informed set of talks about the way Grayson sees the artworld. He has looked at whether contemporary art is good or bad in his first lecture; what the boundaries of modern art are in his second, and his third discusses the role of art as rebellion, and whether art is now dead. Is he talking to you "dinner and a show" and "fun fashion and friends"? Are you an artist or a bedroom DJ?

As he says"And it’s a nice life. Come in! It’s not easy, it‘s not easy, I’m not saying it is, you know it’s not like being a celebrity but it’s a very rewarding and exciting place you know to hang out. I mean here we are in Tate Modern now. It’s the first or second most popular tourist destination in the country, 5.3 million visitors a year. And I suppose in some ways I’m talking to those people but not all of them so I sort of, I looked at some Arts Council survey on audience segmentation, who are the people that I’m talking to with this lecture? And they’ve divided up the audience for art, museums and galleries into several categories and I don’t really need to talk to what I call the "urban arts eclectic" or the "mature explorer" because they’re a guaranteed shoe-in. They’d come anyway. And I haven’t got a chance with the "bedroom DJs" or the "time-poor dreamers". I’m working on the 36% who are dinner and a show, or fun fashion and friends. So that’s who I’m working on, they’re the people I’m talking to."

Handwritten Letter Project

"There is always something nice about receiving a letter, especially these days when email, text, status updates, and tweets, dominate our communication, leaving many to lose sight of the things that have been around for a while (like ink and paper). However, it is important that they do not."

I can't remember the last time I received a letter? Graphic Designer Craig Oldham also worried that the letter was becoming a forgotten art form so he instigated the ‘HAND.WRITTEN.LETTER.PROJECT’ "The project extended an invitation to designers and creative thinkers alike to simply write and make known their thoughts posed by this situation: in handwritten form and on their stationery." The results were exhibited in Sheffield at Made North and a publication is available from their store here.

This website showcases some of the correspondence since the projects initiation in 2007, containing the thoughts of some of the biggest and best designers and design studios from the world over.

He also commissioned Rik Das  prestonillustration graduate to hand write on the venue windows to advertise the show -