Me and my fellow 3rd year art students with Grayson himself!! http://www.lancaster.ac.uk/news/articles/2014/grayson-perry-visits-lancaster-university/
I will remember this talk from Grayson Perry as a moment in which I realised how much art meant to me. I was in awe of Grayosn, not only for his knowledge and celebrity status, but for how human and open he was. It was refreshing and inspiring to be able to simply listen and laugh at his comforting speech rather than feeling need to furiously take notes and decipher what I was being told, which can often be true when listening to art lectures.
I was extremely interested in his admission of how much psychotherapy had played a part in his art work and growth an an artist. He detailed how it allowed him to understand the way people function better and what it means being human. As he was saying this I saw immediate links to his recent TV series (which I also really admired!) where he created portraits which encompassed not only the appearance and personality of the people, but also their hidden nature and aspects about themselves which perhaps they themselves did not realise. I think this highlighted a key part of being an artist, to not only observe and recreate but to immerse yourself in your subject and treat it with empathy and sensitivity in order to create outcomes which are thoughtful and honest. This I feel is where I see blurred boundaries in my own personal investments between art and design, because as a design student I have learnt the importance of ethnography and observation to dig into what peoples true desires and needs are, rather than simply designing based on assumptions and I feel that in some way, Grayson conducts his own kind of ethnography study during his artistic process.
From this Grayson also discussed art education and issues regarding being a student now. I felt that this showed his ability to relate and understand as he described how it is difficult for students now living in a digital age where endless information is accessible and how you can also see streams of artists work from all over the world to measure yourself and your work against. This I feel was extremely true and the fact I am choosing to create a blog of my ideas rather than a traditional sketchbook is a testament to that point as my ideas and work will now be available worldwide to be accessed by anyone. With a endless access and supply of others knowledge and ideas it is difficult to remain unique and to not unconsciously reproduce an idea which had been seen somewhere at sometime while browsing the internet. I feel this does definitely create big questions for to the future of art as technology continues to rapidly progress with inventions like Google glass reframing the limits of our existence in day to day life.
Regarding questions about the Turner prize and being a modern artist, he emphasised how you must embraced the marketing and to talk to people and network, or as he identified about himself 'be a good laugh with a drink in my hand' stating also that the Turner prize is a publicity stunt.
From this he also discussed that you are your own measuring stick for how good your work is and then from that you can measure how good your art is by how many people you can convince that is good. This was a hard statement to listen to and except it for its crude honesty. In the description for his book 'playing to the gallery' he states:
"What is 'good' or 'bad' art - and does it even matter? Is there any way to test if something is art, other than a large group of people standing around looking at it? Is art still capable of shocking us or have we seen it all before?"
I feel it was this level of honesty and deconstructing the art world that I found particularly refreshing about listening to him.
Grayson also identified and mentioned several times comments to do with failure in the process of making art. However he identified 'failing better' in order to learn and grow. I think this is extremely true to be able to identified constructive failure and when an idea has come to the end of its limits and is unsuccessful.
Overall I found the experience inspiring and thought provoking and also found the questions which my fellow students posed to Grayson were also interesting to hear to gain insight into how we feel as young art students.