First, three facts. One, a Mr Ai Weiwei has an installation in place at London’s Tate Modern. Two, I am anxious to present a reasonable picture of myself to a new lady friend. So I propose a late night visit to our nation’s finest emporium of modern art. Three, I am ejected from the Tate Modern.
The aftermath (1): what I told my mate, the Dean. So I get down there, right? To see what Mr Weiwei’s been up to. It’s very impressive. He’s got this thing about sunflowers being the symbol of the emperors and Mao. So he goes to the town where the best porcelain was made for the emperors and gets them to make 100 million
images of sunflower seeds. Every one hand painted.
So I read this blurb about how his show’s all very tactile. You should pick up these little stones, run them through your fingers, lie in them, walk on them…
So I turn up. And there’s a sign. “Do not walk on the exhibit.” I have another look. It says that when they dumped these 100 million bits of stone on the floor, it made a bit of dust. Get on! You wouldn’t guess that would happen, would you?
So some savant decides that if you inhale dust repeatedly for long periods, it might – might, mind – make you feel ill. So you can’t walk on it any more.
What? I mean, I’m not intending to stay the night, am I? When you’ve seen (and pocketed) one porcelain sunflower seed and had a bit of a wander round, that’s it. Ridiculous.
Anyway, the installation’s separated from the milling populace by one of those flimsy cloth barriers you get at airports. The ones you can lift up and go through. So I did.
Over flies some security gent like a greased gazelle on speed. Hysterical. “Please don’t walk on the exhibit”, he gasps, clearly not as fit as he pretends. “You’re not allowed.”
I clear my throat and address the waiting throng in senatorial tones at theatrical volume. “The artist says he’d like us to walk on his exhibit”, I inform them.
“He’s changed his mind”, says the security sprinter.
“Only because you said if he didn’t, you’d crush his stones with a mallet”, I said, quite warming to my theme. “It’s OK”, I told my audience. “You can come through”.
A disappointingly small number braved the gap, ran over and trod the porcelain, but it was enough to reduce the security bloke to a quivering blob. He reached for his walkie-talkie. “I’m calling for back up”, he told me.
Even I can see it’s not going to impress my new amour if I’m wrestled to the ground and carried out of the building, so I retire to the audience without – where I am, I find, a bit of a hero. I begin to bask. “Does anyone else think this is ridiculous?” I demand. To my surprise, I have begun a public meeting.
“It’s bloody awful”, one rather smart middle aged chap says. “It looks like a gravel heap from down here and a cat litter from upstairs.’
I call in a young Australian woman. “Yes?” “You can’t go in because of dust”, she exclaims – nice and loud so we can all hear. “I came here on the bloody Northern Line – where you really are talking dust. But they let me in there OK.”
This contribution attracts some merited applause, but then I feel a tap on my arm. I look round. It’s security back-up. I know I have lost. She is a tiny woman.
Any resistance and I am a bullying misogynist. I crumble.
“Are you the ring-leader?”
“Yes.”
“You’d better leave.”
“OK.”
All because of a bit of dust. If they’re that worried about my health and safety, why don’t they come round and clean my flat?
The aftermath (2): what I told the intended. It wasn’t my fault, you know. I only did it because the frail and kindly-looking woman with a melancholy demeanour next to me said it was her dying wish to see someone engage in a physical way with Mr Weiwei’s exhibition.
Honest. She’d walked barefoot from Blackburn. I saw a tear in her eye that reminded me of those melting ice-caps I get so upset about…
Oh. You’re off. Have you got my number? Shall I call you?
The aftermath (3): what I told Bennett, the office health and safety rep:
Yes, I know. You’re right. Health and safety. We all have a duty. I read about those idiots who forced their way onto the exhibit in the Tate. They should be charged. Selfish, that’s what.
Have they thought about the people who work in the Tate? What are they supposed to breathe during the eight hours of their shift? Filthy dusty air, that’s what. Just so some middle-class arty types can get up close and intimate with a room full of pebbles.
Me? I’d shut the whole place down until the last pebble had either been removed or carefully washed in a non-biological un-toxic antiseptic product.
The aftermath (4): what I told myself. I’ll try ringing her tomorrow. With a bit of luck she might have fallen over on her way home, banged her head and got amnesia.
