No Arms, No Legs, Hanging on a Wall

So apparently Larry quit his job at McMann and Tate, moved to London with Louise and opened a big old bewitching art gallery. Who knew.

I tagged along with our houseguests yesterday to the Tate Modern. I'm rubbish at art but, as they say, I know what I like. Most of the time I felt like Patsy looking at Edina's father in his casket ... "but is it art?"

Saw all kinds of things, some cool, some just ridiculous. And some kinda humpable. I named those specimens "live art." They were abundant.

As far as the non-breathing works went, this in particular really moved me ...

I'm sure I've seen this before, in books or maybe playing Masterpiece, but never realized how big it was; or how standing in front of it would stir up emotions in me.

That would have been a good one if I was still in therapy ... "Um yeah, nothing really new. Felt like crying when I saw a Monet over the weekend. Oh, and I had a pretty vivid sex dream about my ex in Texas who I haven't seen or spoken to in over a decade. But all in all everything's grand."

and we digress

We walked into one of the galleries and I saw a glass of water, sitting on a shelf, which irritated me. That's just stupid, I thought, how can people get away with calling this crap art?

I soon discovered it was actually An Oak Tree. The accompanying Q&A made me laugh, and now it's stuck with me. In fact, it's turned out to be one of my favorite pieces. So all apologies to Mr. Craig-Martin for being too quick to judge. His Six Foot Balance ... is also really good.

This, however, is not.

Also impressive was Giuseppe Penone's Tree of 12 Meters. He took two huge wooden beams, then worked around the knots to sculpt what appear to be real trees coming out of the beams. Tree --> beam --> tree --> art turned inside out. Amazing.

By the way, this is no longer a blog. It is a Pulitzer Prize winning work of creative non-fiction, soon to be optioned by Dreamworks.