Grayson Perry in The Times

Here is a nice piece that is in the Times today with Grayson Perry's take on RCA Secret. Click here to read the article which includes pictures of some more cards in the show.

Grayson Perry on designing a postcard for the RCA Secret

Designing a postcard for Royal College of Art's Secret show should be easy, but it is much more than a casual scribble
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I get asked to contribute artworks to charity auctions or do a drawing for a worthy campaign about once a week. Sometimes artists are seen as being able to print money. I give to quite a lot of them but I can suffer from charity fatigue. I am always delighted, though, to contribute to the RCA Secret show, now in its 15th year, in which artists donate postcard-sized works anonymously, and all are sold for £40 each. The money goes into a bursary fund to help to support the RCA's fine-art students.

Keeping the works anonymous is a very clever idea because potential buyers have to use their own powers of discrimination. They cannot rely on brand names for validation. They must look at the artworks closely rather than read the labels, a habit I suggest that they might find rewarding at any exhibition. I have contributed a few cards for the past five years. I don't go out of my way to disguise my works as I think it is nice for the buyers to have a characteristic drawing.


Giving artworks to good causes highlights the artist's ability magically to transform cheap materials into something worth money. I call this gift/curse Picasso Napkin Syndrome (or PNS) after Pablo's habit of paying for meals with a doodle. One aspect of having the Midas-like touch of PNS is that I find myself agonising over a tiny, seemingly inconsequential, drawing because there is the strong possibility that at some point it is going to be in the focus of the public eye. Creativity demands a relaxed fluency but I find my artistic sphincter nipping up at the thought that some casual scribble of mine will be exposed to the scrutiny of connoisseurship or be judged harshly in the saleroom. So I stare pathetically at the blank postcards with all the intensity of Michelangelo, chisel in hand, squaring up to a block of marble.

Sadly an artist's ability to transform base cardboard into gold can attract scammers. Shortly after RCA Secret one year I received a letter from a woman saying that she had queued for the sale with her autistic son. Her son, she said, was a great fan of my work and he was bitterly disappointed that they were unable to secure one of my postcards. She sent me some of his repetitive scribbles as evidence of his condition and his love of art. She asked if I could find space in my heart for her son and do a drawing just for him. I'm an innocent soul and I was touched. My heart curiously hardened when a few days later I received a near identical letter from a different name and address.

I thought that someone with the ability to come up with such an elaborate scam should do well as a contemporary artist.

Hirst this year?

Has Damien Hirst contributed to the sale this year?

Early articles which appeared in the independent and the evening standard referred to Damien Hirst as a contributor to the sale BUT more recent articles have not mentioned Hirst as a contributor. Nor has the RCA press release. So will Damien be there? I guess we will know this friday.

Article in the Evening Standard

Tonight's evening standard has a piece about the show if you want to pick it up on the way home. Alternatively you can click here or read the text below.

Yours for £40 ... and it could be a Tracey Emin
Louise Jury, Chief Arts Correspondent
05.11.08

Yoko Ono, Tracey Emin and photographer David Bailey have created new works to help future artists.

All three have contributed an original piece of art on a postcard for sale in the Royal College of Art's annual Secret exhibition, which raises money for bursaries to the college.

The secret is that only after you have paid £40 for your card of choice do you discover the identity of its maker on the back.

Each visitor can buy up to four from the 2,700 on display on a first-come, first-served basis. It means with a keen eye and a bit of luck you could pick up originals by, for example, four different Turner Prize winners for £160.

Grayson Perry, Anish Kapoor, Douglas Gordon and Grenville Davey are the award-winning quartet.

More than 1,000 creatives, including shoemaker Manolo Blahnik, fashion designers Sonia Rykiel and Paul Smith, and architect Will Alsop, have also turned their hand to the task.

Illustrator Quentin Blake, Clash guitarist-turned-painter Paul Simonon, Wallace and Gromit creator Nick Park and singer Holly Johnson are on the list. Or you could end up with a piece by Olafur Eliasson, designer of the Weather Project in Tate Modern's Turbine Hall, veteran American artist Alex Katz or designer James Dyson.

Wilhelmina Bunn, the curator, said: "People are very keen to do it. It's quite hard for people like Manolo Blahnik because they're all over the place, but they do.

"They want to support it because the money goes to the fine art students' bursary fund for those who perhaps couldn't come to the Royal College otherwise."

However, purchasers could find themselves with a work by an unknown - though potential star of the future - as the current crop of 160 students also submit pieces.

The purchases could prove a shrewd investment. A postcard by Peter Doig bought in 2000 later sold at Sotheby's for £42,000.

The works cover all disciplines taught at the RCA from painting to sculpture and ceramics. It means some cards are three-dimensional. All will go on show at the RCA in Kensington Gore from 14 to 21 November. The sale will take place on 22 November from 8am until 6pm.

Visitors to the exhibition can take part in a £1-a-ticket raffle to win one of the first 50 places in the now-traditional queue on sale day. The cards will also be available to view online.

About 3,000 visitors turned up for the sale last year. More than £1million has been raised for the bursary fund since the first Secret show in 1994.

College to sell 2700 cards for RCA Secret 2008

According to the NME the college will be exhibiting 2700 cards this year. Click here to read the full story.

Anish Kapoor this year

According to this RCA press release Anish Kapoor will be contributing to this years sale, amongst many others.

Leading artists and designers from around the world including Yoko Ono, Anish Kapoor and Tracey Emin have contributed to this year’s RCA Secret postcard exhibition and fundraising sale taking place at the Royal College of Art in London from 14–22 November.

RCA Secret is one of the UK’s most distinctive art events and was the brainchild of an RCA student in 1994 to help raise funds for the fine art students. The idea was simple — ask famous artists and young art students to submit an original piece of art with just two rules — the art work must be completed on a postcard and it must be signed on the reverse, keeping the artists’ identity a secret. All cards are sold in a one-day sale to the public with each card costing just £40 each.

Fifteen years later, RCA Secret has grown in popularity and now has over 1,000 artists donating to the event each year. Amongst the artists and designers who have contributed nearly 2,000 postcards to this year’s event include Tracey Emin, Yoko Ono, Anish Kapoor, David Bailey, Grayson Perry, Olafur Eliasson, former Clash member Paul Simonon, Wallace & Gromit creator Nick Park, sculptor Richard Wilson, inventor James Dyson and the fashion designers Paul Smith and Sonia Rykiel. More names will be announced soon.

Professor Glynn Williams, Head of Fine Art at the RCA said:

“We are incredibly pleased and grateful with this year’s contributions by some of the world’s leading artists and designers. RCA Secret is about securing the future for the next generation of artists and by coming to buy postcards at the event the public are helping to make this possible.”

The format stays the same with the postcards exhibited in the RCA galleries and on-line from 14 to 21 November. Then for one day only on 22 November, all the postcards will go on sale for the incredibly low price of just £40 each. Postcards can only be bought on a first come, first served basis, with no sealed bids or reservations in advance. There will also be a raffle for buyers to win a position in the first fifty places of the sale-day queue.

Since 1994, thousands of art lovers have had the opportunity to buy original works of art at an affordable price whilst helping to support young artists.

Small art in the standard on Wednesday

Here is a small article that appeared in the evening standard on Wednesday.

Buy Hirst art for £40 ... if you're lucky
Amar Singh
22.10.08 AN EXHIBITION that gives art lovers the chance to buy a Tracy Emin, David Bailey, Yoko Ono or Damien Hirst for just £40 returns next month.

The Royal College of Art's annual Secret show will see more than a thousand postcard-sized works sold to help raise funds for students.

Some are by leading artists and others are by RCA graduates but the creator's name will only be revealed after the postcard is purchased. On Monday a Peter Doig postcard bought in 2000 was sold at Sotheby's for £16,250.

They can be seen in the RCA galleries and online from 14 to 21 November.

On 22 November, all go on sale for one day only. Others contributing this year include fashion designers Paul Smith and Sonia Rykiel, architect Will Alsop, inventor James Dyson, animator Nick Park and graphic designer Milton Glaser.

Professor Glynn Williams, head of fine art at the RCA, said: "It's one of the most democratic art sales in the world."

The lure of the sale

What makes the RCA secret sale so special? Why do so many people queue for so long to buy these little pieces of art?

I’ve pondered this for a while now and come up with a list of reasons, see what you think

1. Variety

Not only is this the spice of life but also it truly means there is something for everyone at the RCA secret sale. If your thing is a pretty watercolour of flowers then there are cards for you. If conceptual art is more to your taste then again there is something that you will fall in love. Virtually all artistic styles and all contemporary genres are represented in the sale. Frankly if you can’t find something you like then you don’t like art.


2. The guessing game

A lot of people in the queue will protest that they don’t care who designed the card that they buy, they buy cards that they like. Of course you should buy what you like. But even if you do there is still that moment when you turn the card over and find out who did it. And I defy anyone not to have butterflies in their stomach when they are doing that. And if the card that you bought because you liked it turns out to be by a well known artist or celebrity then even better.

3. The research

One of the great things about RCA secret is that it introduces you to artists and styles that you may never have heard of. It’s so exciting to turn over the card, see a name that means nothing to you, to then go back and google and find out more about the artist and what he or she does. A few years ago my other half saw some cards she really liked at the sale. Unfortunately by the time I got to the front of the queue they had gone. But I found out the name of the artist who did them – Moira McNair – and then contacted her. In the end I ended up buying two pieces of art from her, and we still to this day we still occasionally exchange emails.

4. Friendship

A personal reason to me perhaps but through RCA secret I have met many people, all of whom are fascinating to talk to and many of whom have now become good friends. Very few of my other friends or work colleagues have any interest in contemporary art and so it is great to exchange emails and meet up with those who do.

5. Value

I did wonder about putting this in at all. But given that you cannot have a conversation with a non art lover without this thorny question coming up I suppose we have to address it. I don’t think that actually that many people do queue for the potential value of the pieces. I think this is for two reasons: firstly that very few of the cards are actually sold after the sale. There are a few that have come on to the secondary market but not many. The second reason is that I am not convinced that the cards have an enormous value. Sure there are the examples of the odd card that has done well in the secondary market – cards by Damien Hirst and Peter Doig in particular – but the majority make nothing like that. Even cards by well known artists rarely make £200 on ebay, and many have failed to sell at auction.

6. The college

Seriously I couldn’t think of a better venue for the sale. When you bear in mind the fact that the college are not a commercial organisation the way they run the sale is exemplary. The cards are now professionally photographed and on the website the day the sale opens (no mean feat given the number of them). The college are always a pleasure to deal with when attending the viewings. And then you have the sale date itself. Given the number of people who queue and the inevitable squabbles that break out in the queue you really have to take your hat off to the way in which the sale day is organised. Commercial galleries could learn a lot from the way that the college organises itself.

Doig card sells for £16,250

The Peter Doig card from the 2000 sale referred to in this post sold today for £16,250. Not bad for a £35 investment.

Great article in the independent

A smashing feature in the independent today about the sale. Text is repeated below - lots of interesting contributor news. Best of all are that there is a sneak preview of a number of the cards in this years sale. Click here to read it all and for the pictures follow the "More pictures" link in the article.

Spot the masterpiece?

So you think you know your art – but can you tell your £15,000 Peter Doig from your £40 student artist? Arifa Akbar reveals all

The country's biggest art lucky dip is back, in the shape of the Royal College of Art's "Secret" exhibition, at the end of next month.

Art-lovers can choose to buy one of about 2,000 postcards produced by the country's most established artists, fashion designers and photographers, including David Hockney, Damien Hirst, Tracey Emin, David Bailey and Zandra Rhodes, as well as unidentified student artists, for £40. What makes the show so exciting is that the signature on the back of the postcard is only revealed after it has been bought.

Alongside an exclusive preview of some of this year's postcards on sale (pictured), keen-eyed aficionados are invited to guess which image amongst them is by the artist Peter Doig. The postcard in question was bought by one lucky recipient for £35 in 2000. The postcard is up for auction at Sotheby's with an estimate of up to £15,000 on 27 October.

Also in this collection are cards from past years by Paula Rego, Peter Blake, Hirst, Emin and Paul McCartney. Can you spot them? This year's sale will include contributions from Yoko Ono, Emin, Olafur Eliasson, Bailey, Paul Smith, Grayson Perry and the Clash bassist Paul Simonon, among others.

Some Contributor News

Visit London has a nice little piece on the sale - click here to see it.

There are also some small pictures of 5 of the cards in the sale, which I have posted here.

Most excitingly some contributor news as well. According to the site the following have contributed to the sale:

The Clash bassist Paul Simonon
Pop Artist Alex Katz
Yoko Ono
Turner Prize winner Grenville Davey
Architect Will Alsop

Alex Katz is interesting. I'm pretty sure that he has contributed fairly uninspiring cards to previous years sales, although I was never sure whether it was THE Alex Katz or not...

RCA Secret 2008 contributors

With less than a month to go until the exhibition opens very little information from the college yet about contributors to this year's show. I've yet to see any significant press about the sale too - this will surely come soon. Normally an article appears in the times about this time of year.

I do try and keep an eye on the press but if anyone sees anything about the sale do let me know.

Meantime here are a couple of artists who have confirmed their involvement this year - Louisa Minkin and Robin Duttson.

Last Chance to look at 2007's cards

The 2007 Cards will be removed from the RCA website on Tuesday 14th October

Have a last long look at them Here

Remind yourself of your favourites, the ones you wanted but werent there when you finally got to the front....

The one that the person in front of you bought that looked awful...

The one that the person behind you bought, that looked wonderful.

Card shown was the last card from RCA 2007, number 2300 by Anja Hartmann.

Peter Doig card goes under the hammer

A card by Peter Doig for the 2000 RCA Secret sale goes under the hammer at Sothebys on 20 October 2008. For full details see here. The last Doig card to be auctioned went for £42,000.

The tension is rising

Start doing that research guys and gals because before you know it we will be hitting that queue ready for another interminable wait in the cold.

October is a great month for doing the research with all the art fairs in london - Freeze, Art London, Zoo art fair and the Affordable Art fair. Who knows I may see you at some of those.

Do you like the picture? Another one of John's amazing creations. I reckon he could do the college's publicity material.

Two months to go until RCA secret 2008

Just two months to go now before RCA secret 2008 and here is a sneaky peak of one card that may or may not be in the show. According to the artist's blog he managed to spill fake blood on it so has requested some new blank cards from the college...

Still not really form to put it on your flickr site before the sale I would say...

RCA Secret 2008 Announced

See the details here. RCA Secret 2008 announcement has come really early this year, more updates as we find them.

RCA Secret contributors currently on show at the Royal Academy

Want to get ahead of the game for RCA Secret 2008. Well, although we don't know who is going to be in the RCA Secret 2008...

I can reveal that at least 34 of the contributors of last years RCA Secret have work on display in the Royal Academy Summer exhibition.

Both the RA Summer and RCA Secret are quite alike in some respects, as they cover a wide variety of styles and almost all disciplines. These are two events where you get to see such a diverse amount of art in one place.

The card shown is by Jessie Brennan from RCA Secret 2008. Jessie is in the RA Summer Exhibiton now, and has put a card in the RCA Secret for the last three consecutive years.

Music as therapy sale continues

Today is the second day of the music as therapy secret postcard sale. If you can't get there in person you can always buy over the phone. Check the sale website for details of the cards sold, and those still available.

The cards are only £35 and you would be supporting a great charitable cause.

Pictured is a card I bought last night by phone - can't wait to see it when it arrives :)

Music as Therapy Secret Postcard sale

Many of you may remember my post about this last year. Click here for that.

Anyway the details for this, the charity's third secret postcard sale are as follows:

"Our main event in 2008 will be our third Secret Postcard Sale, to be held Friday 16th - Monday 19th May 2008 at Gillions Art, 495 Battersea Park Road, SW11 4LW."

All of the cards will be on the charity's website from Thursday 15th May 2008 to view.

Pictured is a card from last year's sale by Claire Burton that now adorns my hall.

Still feeling the Love?

From JMM.

Well, Happy new year all (Am I still allowed to say that in Feb?)

Anyway, now with a few months since Secret 07 opened and closed, I'm wondering how people are feeling about it, now that the hype and the sale are being confined to memory.

Do your RCA cards have pride of place? Have they now been shamedly put in a drawer, given away as presents, eaten by the dog, sold on ebay? Still feeling the Love you had for them when after all that queing and worrying you finally held them in your hand? Buyers remorse?

I have most of mine dotted around the house, although one is in a plastic sleeve thats stuck onto the fridge (its an insult to fridge magnets but I paid £30 for it and can't throw it out.

Hopefully none of yours have suffered the fate of one of my cards, when I framed an oil-painted card in a cheap and nasty frame (with the intention of being temporary), only to discover it flattend the oil, and had some transference to the glass that it shouldn't have been pressing up against.

Having said that, (almost) more frustrating for me is the fact that although last year I think my wife and I were extremely lucky, out of the eight cards we bought between us, we have only frame two. The rest are safely wrapped in the envelope I received them in, awaiting the day I can afford to have them all framed professionally. So the picture above (two cards by Damien Hirst) was created using Photoshop.




I'll be making the trip to John Jones in a week or so with a few others to finally get these framed, and will let you all know how we got on. In the meantime, I'd love to hear from you about whether you haven't stopped looking at your cards since you bought them, or that a day doesnt go by without you saying to yourself "Whatever was I thinking?".

Anyway, the good news is that there are only 10 months to go to RCA Secret 2008. Woohoo!!