The Gallery

The art of life confounds me at times. The Bank Holiday Monday meant that the starting time at the Guardian was a bit later than usual.

What better way to spend the extra hours than by going to see my dad and then heading up to the Hayward Gallery.

I wanted to go to the newly refurbished Whitechapel Gallery but they don’t do Bank Holiday Monday opening.

So the sunny South Bank was all mine.

Mark Wallinger is curating the Russian Linesman, Frontiers Borders and Thresholds while Annette Messager is doing The Messengers.

And the message? Seinfeld.

I thought of a line from George in Seinfeld where he said something like: “I don’t get art.”

It might even have been: “I don’t get modern art.”

Though I persist in trying to get modern art, I often think about the Woody Allen character in Annie Hall. In a gallery with Annie Hall he says: “It has a wonderful otherness.”

Perhaps I should have extra shots of caffeine to transport me to the spatial mentality where I would really get it.

I usually have the coffee as a reward for trying to expand my mind.

Not good for the gallery but might be good for the headlines at work.