Finding ourselves on Bankside on a quest for an amplifier (don’t ask) we paid a visit to the Tate to check out the new installation in the turbine hall. Rachel Whiteread has installed untold thousands of polythene casts of the insides of cardboard boxes, arranged neatly, in piles and in mountains.
Reminds me of working in the supermarket warehouse that I spent the best years of my late teens. I read the information, understood her motivation, but came to the same conclusion that I reach when considering most modern art. It looks cool, and it’s certainly a unique experience, but the deep and meaningful aspect just washes over me. Maybe I’m shallow. Maybe I’m ignorant. But I can’t help feeling all the blurb is just a way to justify filling a huge room with boxes.
October 16th, 2005
I thought it was Bank Holiday blues, but now I think the reason I have spent the whole day yawning is because of the fresh, salty air I consumed yesterday. A drive to Ashford in Kent, to investigate the college that Jess is being interviewed by on Thursday, became a trip to Hythe and Dungeness to eat fish and chips and see Derek Jarman’s house and garden. This is exactly what Jay did on her long weekend, but I have no shame in plagiarising other peoples’ leisure activities.
Not that impressed by the few spiky plants and reclaimed bits of wire and wood that had been sold to me as the greatest garden this side of Eden. Maybe it’s a male thing? Maybe I just don’t ‘get’ it? Maybe it’s a deep seated resentment for a man pretentious enough to create a film of one frame of blue? Power station looked cool though.
With the fish and chips still sitting fairly heavy on my stomach, ’twas back home for a good, sturdy Chicken Shashlick at the local curry house. Maybe the tiredness is from overeating?
August 30th, 2005
