Is there anything funny about art? 

We are, as previously said around these fractured parts, getting deeper into the countdown to this year’s London Art Car Boot Fair. A mere twenty five days to go now, it was twenty-nine or maybe thirty last time we checked on the (not quite so vile) countdown. We will continue to feature participating artists as we count down to the annual event that once again is happening at at Lewis Cubitt Square, Kings Cross. We did bring you the artist line back at the end of June although there’s probably been an artist or two added since then – The artist line up for one of the London Art Year’s highlights that is the Art Car Boot Fair has now been announced…

Artists appearing in-person at this year’s Art Car Boot fair include Pam Hogg, the legendary Scottish fashion designer, that “champion of the eccentric and outlandish” who has created clothes for Debbie Harry, Siouxsie Sioux, Bjork, Rihanna, Naomi Campbell, Kate Moss and Lady Gaga in her one-of-a-kind five-decade career (the same Pam Hogg that was recently filmed throwing a pie in the face of Kunsty The Clown, we are expecting Kunsty to be at the fair aren’t we?).

Meanwhile Dion Kitson comes (back) to the 2025 fair fresh from a five-star review from The Guardian for his Rue Britannia exhibition and a viral London Fashion Week jewellery collaboration that transformed Gregg’s most-famous menu items into 22-carat gold-plate pieces (it is the kind of thing he’s being doing for years but hey, people have just, so it seems, noticed). Comedian Joe Lycett says; “Dion Kitson understands the state of the nation better than anyone and why it is the way it is: funny, and beautiful, and dumb”. Dion is bringing Lycett’s other favourites, subversive street artist Foka Wolf, plus artist and comedian Tat Vision with him. 

Karen Ashton, Founder of the Art Car Boot Fair says “This year’s theme ‘Art, Comedy & the Comic’ is all about celebrating the lighter side of creativity. In uncertain times humour is a powerful tool – and artists are the best jesters, critics, and storytellers around. Expect the unexpected”. The Art Car Boot Fair is art at its most alive (so it says here, did we say that? Is that an Organ quote, we have been covering the fair for years, for almost all of the twenty-one years it has been around now, we’ve taken part for most of them). Whether you’re a seasoned collector or a curious newcomer, the Art Car Boot Fair offers an unmissable opportunity to meet artists face-to-face, haggle for a masterpiece, and walk away with a smile –and something rare under your arm. We artists, well some of us at least, do like that face-to-face bit that is rather unique to the air, although I might argue there’s nothing funny about art.  

We asked that great disruptor of notions of taste and cognition Marie Brenneis a quick question about it – Marie is best known for her “immersive maximalist colour artworks. Her medium is colour, creating large scale 3D paintings, drawing – paintings, collages, installation, sculpture and performance. A Reader in Colour, she draws from the absence and restrain of bright colours in Western Art and Contemporary Culture”, so we asked her a quick question; Comedy? Is there anything funny about art? 

“It depends on perception, art now in London has become more serious, because they copy what’s in the news, I don’t think that’s art, I think it’s visual journalism. Art can be funny but sadly we don’t see enough of comic art around at the moment…” I assume by ‘they’ Marie means artists? Marie Brenneis makes very bright art, almost as bright as she always is whe nyou bump into her, she is almost a global noise attack, or a colour attack or something like that 

We asked  Sadie Hennessy the same question; Comedy? Is there anything funny about art? 

“I think art can be hilarious, if it wants to be.  There seems to be a scorn for the use of humour in art, almost as if the gatekeepers of the art world have no sense of humour?!” Sadie’s most recent London show Tasty Tasty at Redchurch Street’s Studio 1.1 was rather tempting, enticing, was alluring a compliment? Sadie Hennessy’s own biog tell us that she’s “a multi-disciplinary artist whose roots lie in collage, but who has expanded her idea of collage to encompass the third and fourth dimensions, to create immersive environments and events, examining the world around her, as she perceives it through her sardonic lens. She explores the vital issues of the day, through a dark prism of melancholia, mixed with black humour.  She is especially interested I the tension between the natural and the man-made world”.  Sadie will once again be at this year’s Art Car Boot Fair, those who caught her tennis antics at the fair a couple of years back will know that her art is always a very very serious matter…

The fair is 25 days away – Earlybird tickets are on sale now via the Fair’s website (do make sure you look at the Earlybird ticket option just underneath the regular tickets, earlybird tickets are £10, while £5 tickets that get you in later/cheaper are a little further down the page).

ORGAN PREVIEW: There’s nothing funny about art and the Art Car Boot Fair is three dozen days away, here’s Kunsty The Clown…

ORGAN PREVIEW: The artist line up for one of the London Art Year’s highlights that is the Art Car Boot Fair has now been announced. The comedy edition brings together Vic Reeves, Mr Doodle, Modern Toss, Pam Hogg, Juno Calypso, Pure Evil and a cast of around one hundred fun loving artists…

ORGAN PREVIEW: The countdown to this year’s much anticipated Art Car Boot Fair has started, always a highlight of any London art year…

ORGAN THING: So the 2024 Art Car Boot Fair went into space, no one could hear anyone scream, here’s some words, forward with it all…

ORGAN THING: And so the 2023 Art Car Boot Fair happened, drag queens strutted, art popped, performers danced, there was posing, pop music, a piss artist and of course car boots full of art…

Previously…