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."