Art Car Boot Fair

A collaboration with different artists to produce limited edition artworks made available at reduced fees directly from the artists to the public exclusively at the Art Car Boot Fair events in 2013, 2016, 2017, 2018 and 2019.

The Art Car Boot Fair is a vibrant cross between an art fair and a car boot sale – A quintessentially British afternoon of art buying, mingling and entertainment.

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, Mat Collishaw, Fiona Banner and Bob & Roberta Smith. The ACBF has been held every year since, except for 2005, and it currently takes place twice a year and features an invited line-up of 150 artists with Turner Prize winners pitching next to rising stars, fine artists next to street artists and everything in between. The art is exclusively commissioned for the event and presented at fabulously reduced, just-for-the-day prices by the artist in person.
The main aim of the Art Car Boot Fair is to be a day when the artists let their hair down and for visitors to engage with art and the artists in an informal way, and to pick up some real art bargains to boot. The Art Car Boot Fair is an exciting and energised one-day event, widely regarded as the most democratic and fun way to buy art.
Founded and produced by Karen Ashton, a curator and independent art consultant and writer, and originally produced with Helen Hayward, the ideas behind the Art Car Boot Fair developed out of Joshua Compston’s ‘Fete Worse than Death’ and Gavin Turk’s ‘Livestock Market’ and ‘Articultural Shows’, Hoxton-based events that blazed a trail in the late 90s. The first Art Car Boot Fair picked up where they left off with the intention of re-introducing some summer fun and frivolity into a thriving but increasingly commercial London art scene.

2013: ‘Time For Outrage’ with screenprints by seven emerging artists.

2014: Screen Printed tote bags by Grayson Perry and Screenprints by Jake & Dinos Chapman with designs from The Artist’s Colouring Book of ABC’s.

2016: Screen Print with MP3 player of Dr John Cooper Clarke reading “Chicken Town”.

2017: “Time For Outrage II” with Screen Prints by John Isaacs, Jake and Dinos Chapman and Dr John Cooper Clarke.

2018: Cigarette Packs and Match Boxes by Nancy Fouts.

2019: “Cosmic Lovers” Screen Prints and screen printed Tote Bags by Neal Fox.