Gallery art should be special

You may recall Miroslaw Balka’s “Box of Darkness” that was displayed at the Tate Modern back in 2009. For the uninitiated, it was effectively a very big box that was very dark, and you could walk around inside it, and, err, well that was about it really. Except it wasn’t really very dark as there was a wide-open entrance, plenty of camera flashes, and people fiddling with their mobiles.

Quite why anyone would want to go to an art gallery to sit in a not very dark box when they could do a far better job of it in their basement at home is bizarre. Why does the Tate Modern house such terrible junk, valued at such ludicrous prices that they make you feel ill to the bottom of your moral core?

Perhaps they do it conscientiously. Perhaps they simply don’t want to detract from the architectural beauty of the former power station and its supreme turbine hall. Or maybe it’s the only way they can attract superficial, superdull, superthick yuppies who are suckers for being seen doing the “it” thing when having a break from their estate agent duties of fleecing honest folk.

The Tate Modern is currently running an exhibit that comprises 100 million sunflower seeds. You can just imagine the excitement this must have stirred amongst Foxtonites:

“Oh, we must go and see this ruthlessly avant-garde oeuvre.”

“It’s wonderfully interactive. You can walk on the seeds and live a spiritual journey.”

“You know that condom on a bed thing? These seeds make that look sooo pre-millennium.”

Actually, they’re not real seeds. They are made out of lead painted porcelain. People were initially able to walk on and pick up the “seeds” but this was soon banned after concerns over the amount of ceramic dust created. Yes, it seems that modern artists really do have no talent – they can’t even get a black box or some seeds right.

The idea that modern art is interactive, or God forbid “an experience”, is farcical. The whole thing is gobshite. What’s more interactive? Looking at some fake seeds, or exploring a city such as New York? Which one lets you have a genuine experience, where you can discover the history and hidden emotions contained within it? Indeed, the cities we live in are more than just a network of streets and squares; when the Italian opera house, La Fenice, in Venice, was ruined in a fire, the entire country was described as being in mourning and illustrious singer Pavarotti was moved to declare: “The entire world of opera feels like an orphan after such a loss”. How many would mourn the loss of Mr Balka’s crap?

Rhetorical questions aside, art placed in a gallery should be special. It shouldn’t be something that a twelve year-old could have created (or in Tracey Emin’s case, a sex-charged and untidy eighteen year-old). The Sistine chapel blows the mind, as do the doors to the Florentine baptistery (aptly named “The Gates of Paradise”). They both required skills that had to be developed and honed over years of hard graft.

Michelangelo and Ghiberti weren’t looking to make a quick buck. But today’s art world is increasingly geared towards instant gratification and success, so much so that I’ve created my own masterpiece. I’ve gotten off my high horse and have purchased some A4 paper, to then hang on a wall. It can be anything you want it to be – reinforced by its amusingly ironic title “Untitled Work”. And every time someone draws on it, its value shall incr... sorry, got to dash – Charles Saatchi is calling.