O talent, where 'art' thou?

So, what's the obvious thing to do when you're in the London Bridge area and have an hour to kill? The Tate Modern of course.

Never done it before so it also ticked a box on the 'new things to do' list. I really like art, I nearly did a degree in fine art but now I'm wondering whether I'm actually a complete philistine. That was an hour of my life that I will never get back and I left there feeling like I needed a drink to calm me down. If my blood had boiled out of the top of my head while I was in there I could have turned it into an installation and sold it for half a million. I'm not completely against modern art- even though the Dalis are a little weird there's clearly a talent there and I appreciate that Damien Hirst has a way with skulls and diamonds that most of us couldn't emulate but what I don't get is the correlation between the description of the "work" and the work itself.

Take this for example.


 Match the description to the installation. For crying out loud, it's one chair stacked on top of another.








 And then there's this one....

 As hard as I try I just cannot see a goat amongst the debris on the floor. I can, however, recognise that an old ironing board was used in this incredible creation. Honestly, the 5 year old monkey creates better installations than these and at least they resemble the intended object.

My colleague and I spent an hour rolling our eyes and wondering whether the rooms we were ambling into were pieces of art or store cupboards in need of a good clear out. I'm going to go home and stick a few egg boxes together with some pipe cleaners and call it "an existential view of despair and fear in the face of an unknown joy and longing" and see if I can become the next Tracey Emin. In a strange way I'm glad I went because the old power station itself is a very impressive structure and I can tick it off my list but I will always be resentful of the anger it stirred in me. Or maybe I'm just jealous that I can't sell my penguin for a few grand....