Brief responses to artist quotes and work showcased.
All available from the iTunes store and each running for about 5 mins…

Meet the Artist Jeremy Deller & Performance Realtime Movie
Why?

Grayson Perry:
Just potty art with swear words. That’s it. GP thinks the Turner Prize is now more famous than the artists… Er, hasn’t it always been that way Mr Perry?

In the Studio: Anthony Gormley
I’ve got a big studio… with a lot of height… and a big reinforced courtyard.
“…on one level its a warehouse, on another level it’s a gallery and on another level it’s like any old shed really”
Come on Gormless, why aren’t you on the level? Surely, all those guys there are doing your work aren’t they? By the way, if you have an early work which doesn’t show the ‘void’ of the body, sell it now coz Tony says they’re failures and surely as such destined to be worthless. Bad news eh. Trade-up now to get the ‘successful’ wired versions. AG ends by stating that sculpture is collaborative, which is great news for all the assistants who are sure to be duly credited and richly rewarded for their ‘group’ success.

Alex James on Ellsworth Kelly’s ‘White Curve 1974′
“cuts right to the heart of aesthetics”… I just drawn to his work… Sophisticated and simple at the same time – is the hardest thing to do… most abstract, essential kinda way… it’s a lot about dimensionality… the longer you look at that, the cleverer you get”
Clearly, Alex hasn’t been there long enough.

Peter Blake: Retrospective
I think they had to tell him where he was. He even has to read his own picture title at one stage. After years of slowing, PB is grinding to a halt and looks like he’s parking – badly. Still some gems though…
“I’ll never be able to paint what I want to paint ever, because it’s impossible”.
That truth makes painting such a great creative act. If only the podcast had ended there. Unfortunately, he continued…
“Duschamps said that whatever an artist does then it is art”… Somebody stop him. “…he opened the door to so much art, so much conceptual art”… Quick, bring the jacket and the white van. Blakey does however claw back some ground by showing work in progress “…the kind of work that most artists wouldn’t let you see”. Generally good entertaining stuff as we have come to expect.

Venice Biennale: Tracey Emin
She’s out of her depth… no video, no photography.
Andrew Graham-Dixon… “Tracey being a proper grown-up artist though not sure I prefer it”.
Louisa Buck…“She is a celebrity in her own right”… “artists who use their own life an their own experience as a source of subject matter are inevitably gonna play with and off that kind of state of things”… I do declare, TE is becoming untouchable.

Venice Biennale: A bluffers guide
Likened to an ‘arts olympics’, ‘arts world cup’, etc.
Andrew Graham-Dixon… “lots of art, but most of it is bad”
Nuff said.

Meet the Artist: Richard Wentworth
Please forgive me, this is just artbollocks. A fine example of what to avoid at all cost.

How we are:
“A portrait of Britain” through the eyes of photographers. And we all know the pictures never lie.
If I had got to this show, I think I would have liked the documentary section far more than the arty stuff.

Meet the Artist: Francis Alys
“art and humour, art and laughter”. Explaining a series of nice little paintings and other media based on a stumbling bloke in Hyde Park. This is meant to be about the movement of art towards the entertainment industry. I really am interested in that, but this doesn’t quite do it for me.

In the Studio: Martin Parr
Interesting, if brief background to the photographer fusing “critical with affectionate… Orchestrated fiction in a ring of truth”.
A calm self analysis that’s hard to argue with.

Thomas Hirschhorn
“…we are living in the time of opinion, of fact, of information and of communication”
Half right, maybe that’s why your work is half-baked.
“…doing artwork is not only glamorous, not only fashionable, not only kool… I don’t want to work for the art market, I don’t want to work against the art market”.
By appearing in a gallery and on podcast, clearly one is currently over-riding the other but keep wrestling with that conscience.
“I always think energy yes, quality no.”.
You said it Thom and frankly, that isn’t a surprise.

Vox Pops: Tate Visitors
Billy Bragg – “The boundary between art and commerce is being what is fabulously breeched here”
That’s cleared that up then. I always wondered what the Tate Modern was about.

New Work: Mark Wallinger
So putting any stuff in a gallery automatically means it will be scrutinized?
What about people like me who just walk past? Ha gotcha.

Martin Creed: Dec 2006
“I love doing things in front of people, but I don’t understand why”
Well, I don’t understand how taking a few random words or obscenities and repeating them over and over again is not seen as a one-trick pony? Oh, you are narcissistic… that’s OK then. S**t you’re great, carry on.