Art Should Be Fun & Affordable

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Art should be fun and affordable, but sadly Grayson Perry’s art is neither. The average piece sells for £10,000, with the highest priced works reaching £1.8 million.

The Art Club is a way to bring the price down. Unlike conventional galleries, it will not charge any commission or rental fees, and buyers won’t need to travel to London or New York to acquire a piece by the artist. Instead of charging large sums for each artwork, we will ask for a small monthly sum from members wishing to take part in the club on a rolling basis.

In order to reduce potential losses, we are planning to buy back any unsold works at set prices determined by our market research. The aim is not to make a profit, but instead keep our buyers happy and secure in their investments. We also plan to hold biannual public auctions of works by Grayson Perry that have been especially well-loved by club members, so that they may recoup their initial investment if they wish.

A few of these established collectors have kindly offered their services as advisors on pricing and condition reports so that new members get the best possible deal when buying into the club. We think this could be key to keeping costs down – both for the collector and for Grayson

If you’re an artist, you can choose to make art that is accessible to as many people as possible. Your work will be less prestigious and sell for less money—but it will reach a wider audience. If you are lucky, some commercial galleries might even give you wall space.

Tate Modern’s decision to showcase Grayson Perry in this way is a sign of the times: the museum is embracing the idea that art should be fun and affordable. Grayson’s work will be a landmark show at Tate Modern; it should also have a lasting impact on artists and their distribution networks, who now have another option for reaching a wide audience.

Artists are in fact already using this approach to reach new audiences and generate more sales: think of Jeff Koons and Damien Hirst, who sell limited edition works to fund their extensive studio operations.* These deals typically involve galleries or private collectors who buy multiple pieces by an artist at full price.

In contrast, Grayson has committed to making his new works available via a transparent online auction process with prices set by the market. He is also including his original sketches in each sale, which in other contexts would usually be sold into private collections at high prices. This is a powerful statement about how he wants his work to be seen: it

Grayson Perry’s art is fun. His decorative plates and tea towels are certainly fun. But his most recent work – a set of four new tapestries for the Houses of Parliament – is the most fun of all. They are playful, witty and decidedly cheeky. It truly makes one wonder how on earth Grayson Perry has managed to convince the government to pay him so much money to make art?

Perry’s tapestries will be hung in Westminster Hall in time for the Queen’s Speech in May 2013. The four scenes are part of a series called “What is Democracy?”, examining Britain’s democratic structures and institutions, such as the House of Commons and House of Lords, and contrasting their current forms with those that appear in history books.

Perry was commissioned by Maria Miller, Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, who said that she wanted to “celebrate Britishness”. This isn’t exactly what Perry set out to do. He says that he “wanted to make a big, ambitious artwork about democracy” but also wanted it to be “fun”. He added that he knew from the start that it would be controversial because it would involve tackling some difficult ideas about democracy such as “the relationship between power and freedom”.

Art collections should be for everybody: people will enjoy art if given the opportunity. I want to change the world by making art available to all.

My ambition is to open a club where anyone can come and see my art works and those of other artists, as well as take part in activities that go with them. And I want to do it in a way that makes it affordable, so that as many people as possible can afford to come.

I envision a space where people could come and learn about art and make their own for a few hours each week. There would be an exhibition space where visitors could see the work and talk to artists, then there would be an activity room where they could make their own work, either guided by an artist or on their own using materials they have chosen themselves. There would also be a shop selling affordable art objects made by previous visitors, so people could take something away with them and keep the creative buzz going at home.

Hello there,

This blog is to explain why I am trying to make my art more affordable and try to give a little bit of background on what I am trying to achieve.

I have been an artist for over twenty years. My art is about me being transgendered and about gender. I have shown in the biggest galleries in London and New York, the most important museums in the world and with the most famous collectors. And yet it has not been easy for me to sell my work.

My works are made from ceramic, tapestry, glass and bronze. They are usually between 7ft and 17ft high and take between two weeks to a month to make.

The trouble is that they are expensive things to produce and so they have become as rare as hens’ teeth at auction. There are only two or three ever listed or sold each year which means there is very little liquidity in this market sector.*

I want to change that by creating smaller versions of my work which will be affordable enough for people who cannot afford the £50,000 plus prices of my large works but who still like my work enough to want one.**

Why? Because where I am from there is a huge amount of prejudice against cross-dressing men (

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