Introducing Take 5 by Tabish Khan. 

Explore Khan's five highlights from the upcoming

Tuesday 5 September Prints & Multiples auction.

Tabish Khan is an art critic specializing in London's art scene and he believes passionately in making art accessible to everyone. Under his Instagram account @londonartcritic he visits and writes about hundreds of exhibitions a year covering everything from the major blockbusters to the emerging art scene. He writes regularly for Londonist, FAD, and Culture Whisper. He is a trustee of City & Guilds London Art School, ArtCan, Discerning Eye, and a critical friend of UP Projects.

Lot 5: Laurence Stephen Lowry RBA RA, British 1887-1976

My top pick is lot 5. The original composition of this piece is nearly a century old and yet if we see a photograph of modern day commuters trudging to work it would look the same - head down, charging forward and surrounded by people yet in their own world. Head to London Bridge or Canary Wharf at rush hour and the setting may look different to Lowry’s depictions of Mills in the Industrial North, but the postures of the people will remain the same. He’s captured that sense of us being cogs in a larger machine that has been with us since the world became industrialised.

Lot 335: Grayson Perry CBE RA,British b.1960-Ashford Hijab, 2014

My second pick is lot 335. Grayson Perry has done a great job of taking a cross-sectional look at Modern British society and working it into his works, normally filled with witty observations and satire. I was drawn to this work because it has a more focused narrative of a white single mother who converts to Islam leaving a world of consumerism for one of spirituality. As a Muslim, it resonates a lot with me and it’s a simple work by Perry’s that doesn’t adhere to his trademark tongue-in-cheek style.

Lot 335: Dan Hillier, British 20th/21st Century,Cellar Door, 2012

This piece reminds me of the works of MC Escher who created impossible worlds in black and white and here we appear to be peering inside someone’s mind or is it their dreams? Many of us dream in black and white and maybe that’s what we’re seeing given there’s a child with a deer’s head. However, it’s left for us to form our interpretation of this surreal scene.

Lot 364: David Shrigley OBE,British b. 1968- Really Good, 2016

My fourth choice is lot 364. I remember when this seven metre tall elongated thumbs up appeared on the fourth plinth in London’s Trafalgar Square. The nation had recently voted to leave the EU, and London which largely voted remain, was still reeling in shock. Shrigley uses humour in all his works, including this one, but at the time most people took this one as it was and co-opted it as a symbol to remind ourselves that things will get better. I loved it so much that I’ve even got one of this edition in my collection at home.

Lot 525: Banksy, British b.1974-  Peckham Rock Postcard, 2018

There’s a reason why Banksy is one of the world’s most loved artists and he demonstrated that once again by placing this Peckham Rock in The British Museum and it went unnoticed, even though a shopping trolley would never appear in a prehistoric artwork. Only when Banksy pointed it out did the museum act and now it’s part of their collection and has even been used in an exhibition they put on about dissenting objects. He’s a prankster who mixes creativity with breaking norms, and occasionally the law, which makes him so admired as an anti-hero.