Editions

Playing to the Gallery

  • Imprint: Penguin

  • ISBN: 9780141979618

  • Length: 144  Pages

  • Dimensions: 199mm x 11mm x 134mm

  • Weight: 144g

  • RRP: £7.99

Playing to the Gallery

  • Helping Contemporary Art in its Struggle to Be Understood

'I have never read such a stimulating short guide to art' Lynn Barber, Sunday Times

Now Grayson Perry is a fully paid-up member of the art establishment, he wants to show that any of us can appreciate art (after all, there is a reason he's called this book Playing to the Gallery and not 'Sucking up to an Academic Elite'). Based on his hugely popular BBC Radio 4 Reith Lectures and full of pictures, this funny, personal journey through the art world answers the basic questions that might occur to us in an art gallery but seem too embarrassing to ask.

  • Imprint: Penguin

  • ISBN: 9780141979618

  • Length: 144  Pages

  • Dimensions: 199mm x 11mm x 134mm

  • Weight: 144g

  • RRP: £7.99

Reviews

  • This book is full of good jokes, full of cartoons, full of memorable epigrams, but above all full of thought-provoking ideas that make you want to pause on every page and say: "Discuss." I have never read such a stimulating short guide to art. It should be issued as a set text in every school

    Lynn Barber, Sunday Times

  • A visual and intellectual delight

    Time Out

  • Punchy, mischievous ... Hugely entertaining. You could, genuinely, take an aphorism or a quote from every second page ... This is splendid, transgressive stuff ... a love letter to art ... a thing of pleasure: petite, luxuriously printed, a mischievous little hymn to 21st-century inclusivity

    Melanie Reid, The Times

  • It reveals Perry to be not just an artist but a wordsmith, too... It is acute and funny at the same time. This, I think, is why people love Perry so much.

    Daily Telegraph

  • A joy to read

    New Statesman

  • A polemic for inclusivity... The great thing about Perry's statement of it here is that you are always convinced that he believes it and lives by it

    Observer

  • It's unputdownable! It's really relevant to anyone who does anything ... A great book ... Grayson is brilliant

    Stewart Lee

More from this Author

About the Author

Grayson Perry

Grayson Perry is an English artist particularly known for his colourfully decorated ceramic vases. As a teenager he identified as a transvestite, and began to study art. He completed a BA in fine art at Portsmouth Polytechnic in 1982, having exhibited his first piece of pottery in 1980. He went on to develop his pottery skills and, following a solo exhibition of his work in Amsterdam, he was awarded the Turner Prize in 2003. He was appointed a CBE 2013 for services to contemporary art. Perry’s alter-ego Claire, who wears colourful dresses and feminine clothing, makes regular public appearances. Perry’s autobiography of his early years, Portrait of the Artist as a Young Girl, was published in 2006. Among his numerous television and radio credits are the documentary Why Men Wear Frocks; The South Bank Show; Imagine; All In The Best Possible Taste with Grayson Perry; and Desert Island Discs.

Grayson Perry

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