St Ives

We headed off to St Ives today for a look around the Tate Gallery. I'm not one of those people who thinks art is only good if it looks like what it's supposed to be, but even so, what was on offer in the Tate was just a mind-bogglingly dreadful load of old nonsense.

Here are some of the quotations from the booklet handed out at the entrance:

'Working on the floor, Moran paints until a recognisable form or desired sensation appears. Chance and surprise are all part of the process'. Who would have thought that the old nursery school trick of sticking your fingers in some paint, applying them randomly to paper, then interpreting the resulting mess into whatever takes your fancy could prove so lucrative.

'Sarcevic blurs the boundaries of sculpture, architecture and film. His arrangements of forms in space - cinematic or actual - are enigmatic and beautiful, but they often allude to contemporary debates on human displacement and political fracture'. Erm, a few bits of wood being filmed by a nutcase and projected on the wall says all that does it?

'Weiner often works with typographic text, which he uses to communicate the content of each piece without specifying any of its physical qualities'. Well done, you can write a sentence in big letters.

Jeezo. How can people take this stuff seriously?

The Barbara Hepworth gardens were lovely though, as were the fresh mussels for lunch and photography stops. (Incidentally, St Ives was where we spent our first weekend together after meeting in Oman only a month or so earlier so it holds fond memories for us.) Larissa's sister Anita and her husband Steve are coming round for some nosh and wine in a bit which will round off the day perfectly.