Reith Lectures 2013 - 'Beating the Bounds'

Reith Lectures 2013

Grayson Perry: Playing to the gallery

‘Beating the Bounds’ (Episode 2 of 4)

The 2013 series sees an exploration of the role and place of art in the global landscape today, addressing a wide range of issues and questions concerning the role of art in society, the limits of contemporary art and how judgements are made about quality.



Grayson Perry has created a series of drawings exclusive to the 2013 Reith Lectures.

In this second instalment from this year’s Reith lecturer Grayson Perry, broadcast from St. Georges Hall, Liverpool, Perry examines what the boundaries of art are, or rather what constitutes art. What exactly does and perhaps equally importantly does not qualify as contemporary art? Has this question been answered already? Perhaps the art world would argue that it has. Perry points out that today there is an almost complacency about this fundamental question – Is this art? – with a widely circulated notion that anything can be art now in a ‘post-post modern’ society, the end of art where absolutely anything goes...

The crux of Perry’s second lecture argues that there are boundaries that remain with regards to what can and cannot be art; however the limits are now blurred. Perry suggests that the boundaries that remain lean towards (in his words) the ‘sociological, tribal, philosophical and even financial’. What are the motivations for making art? Obviously there’s the ‘art for art’s sake’ claim, but also the economic incentive of proclaiming something as art is difficult to ignore, with so much money changing hands in the art market.

It is one thing to categorise something as being art, but is it possible to negate an object deemed a work of art and make it non-art once again? Perry suggests that a work of art perhaps is no longer a work of art once it becomes famous and takes on an almost celebrity-like persona (such as the Mona Lisa), or once it is only viewed in terms of is monetary value above all else and becomes as Perry eloquently puts it ‘a great lump of money on the wall’.

The concept of art and what could and couldn’t be considered art was widely taken for granted until the arrival of modernism and artists started to question the nature of art and Duchamp and his ‘readymades’ opened up the possibility for anything to be art if the artist declares it as such. Since the 1960s anything can be art and art has become a very broad concept, where shock-value has become commonplace and increasingly extreme. Yet, the idea of the ‘traditional’ still pervades, with painting and sculpture retaining their status as ‘high art’.

Perry breaks down the boundaries of what is and what isn’t art with a checklist or recipe for an artwork... and here they are:

Grayson Perry’s ‘boundary markers’ for whether or not something is art...

1.      Is it in a gallery or an art context?

2.      Is it a boring version of something else? (idea that art is not pleasurable)

3.      Is it made by an artist?

4.      Photography – Problematic (how do you tell if a photo is art? – size, subject, value)

5.      Limited edition test

6.      The handbag and hipster test (who are the people looking at the ‘art’ – rich and educated?)

7.      Theme Park + Suduko (Are people queuing to look at it?)

8.      Rubbish dump test (Throw it on a rubbish dump and if people walking by notice it’s there and wonder why the ‘art’ is there)...except if the rubbish dump is itself the art!

9.      The ‘Computer art’ test (Is it frustrating and does it make you pause and think rather than simply react)

These novel criteria for working out if something is art demonstrate that boundaries are formed not by what art can be but instead where, who or why it is art.

‘Beating the Bounds’ is now available to download from BBC Radio4 http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03dsk4d

The third lecture in the series ‘Nice Rebellion, Welcome In!’, will be broadcast Tuesday 29^th October, 09:00 BBC Radio4.