A special episode of Art Club will air on Channel 4 this winter following an inspiring exhibition opening at Manchester Art Gallery.
In a six-episode run earlier this year, Grayson’s Art Club, presented by award-winning artist Grayson Perry, alongside his wife Philippa, brought the nation together.
A one-off celebratory episode will air on Channel 4 this winter, allowing viewers to take a sneak peek behind the scenes of the curation and development of the Art Club exhibition which will open in the heart of Manchester. It will also see Grayson meet in person (socially distanced, of course) with some of the public participants who had their entries selected for the exhibition, as well as some of the celebrity guests and well-known artists who joined Grayson for the series. Their art will feature in the exhibition, alongside the works Grayson and Phillipa produced during lockdown, including the nation’s guardian spirit, ‘Alan Measles’.
Opening at Manchester Art Gallery from 25 November 2020 – 18 April 2021, the exhibition will track the journey the series took as it unleashed the nation’s collective creativity under the constraints of lockdown. Every week, Grayson hosted the show from his own studio in London, taking the country with him as he created new art works in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Each week, a different theme – portraits, animals, fantasy, view from my window, home, national spirit - was explored by Grayson, and he tasked the public, celeb guests and artist friends to develop their own response. Across the run nearly 10,000 pieces of art – from painting to sculptures, photography to mixed media - were entered by the public.
Grayson Perry said: “I could not be happier with Manchester Art Gallery, the venue for the Art Club exhibition; it will be in a people’s palace of culture. All the artists who appeared on our TV series put in a lot of skill, thought and feeling into their works and I am so proud that they will get the opportunity to see their art hanging in this grand, nearly 200-year-old institution.
From its inception Art Club was about the benefits of making art that is open to all. In the true spirit of the series we will be exhibiting the works grouped not by hierarchy of fame or value but grouped in themes. Each artwork will hang amongst others that talk of the shared experiences we have lived through during this extraordinary time of the COVID-19 crisis. This show is a crystallisation of the feelings and obsessions of artists from all over the country whether it is their first painting since primary school or they are world famous.
This will be a show about the joy and solace of making art. It will also be a still moment to reflect on a situation that has affected everyone on the planet.”