The 9th Annual Vauxhall Art Car Boot Fair returned to Brick Lane today with A-Listers, Street Artists and emerging names all touting for business from a mixed crowd of Shorditchers and suburban art collectors.
The weather couldn’t have been kinder, in fact it was positively scorching out there in the art packed car park. As always amazing bargains were to be had by big name artists. Sir Peter Blake was offering a souvenir art car boot fair / Queen’s Jubilee limited edition print for £40 which had sold out by the end of the first hour. Matt Collishaw was selling three reduced price colour prints from his Insecticides series, while Polly Morgan, Bob and Roberta Smith and Pam Hogg were also offering originals and prints for bargain prices. The fair is all about making art fun, affordable and approachable and in this it definitely succeeds. A sense of humour prevails from the cardboard ice cream van selling cardboard and plasticine ice cream cornets to the posters of Art Hate Mind from L-13 and Bob and Roberta Smith’s witty plaques. There was even a car being covered in plastic as an ongoing installation, during the fair.
Also, new to the 2012 fair was The Handbag Disco where you pay a fee to enter, start dancing around the bags on the floor and when the music stops grab one! The bags are all nice but one of them will be a super desirable top-end designer handbag or a cool celebrity bag! Tilda Swinton, Lily Allen, Balenciaga, Matches, Daisy Lowe, Pearl Lowe, Sophie Dahl, Victoria Beckham, Serena Rees, Liberty Ross, Mary Charteris, Lulu Guinness, Jasmine Guinness, Natasha Law, Barbara Hulanicki, Andrew Logan, Alesha Dixon, Maia Norman, Jack French London, Siobhan Fahey, Anna Primrose Hill, Martha Lane Fox, Lisa Moorish, Dinny Hall, Lucy Birley, Jigsaw, John Lewis, Vivienne Westwood, Marty Thornton, Craig Revel Horwood, Duggie Fields, Honeysuckle Weeks, Daisy de Villeneuve have all donated bags with the proceeds going to Just for Kids Law. There was also on-the-bonnet Snail Racing, in-car Scalextrix and Bert’s legendary bottom blushers!
The first Art Car Boot Fair was held in London in 2004 with a line-up of around 30 artists including Gavin Turk, Abigail Lane, Matt Collishaw, Fiona Banner and Bob & Roberta Smith. It has been held every year, except for 2005, making this year the 9th edition of celebrated art fair. The main aim of the Art Car Boot Fair is to be a day when the artists let their hair down and for all-comers to engage with art and the artists in an informal way, and to pick up some real art bargains.
With British cultural celebrations coming to a head this summer with the Cultural Olympiad and Queen’s Jubilee, inspired designs and occasionally irreverent works from the participating British artists was well represented. This year’s event attracted around 5,000 visitors during the six hour event with queues forming in the early hours leading to a queue of 500 people by the time the doors opened! Read More