Out to Munch

Went to see the Edvard Munch exhibition at the Royal Academy with Stephen Arteast yesterday. To be honest, I can't really decide whether I liked it or not.

It was predictably crowded, of course, and being with a proper artist who knows about brush strokes and stuff, I felt like a bit of a sham. When I go to see art it's not to analyse it very deeply, a lot of the time it's just "like that one, don't like that one", and it's difficult to do that when a load of posh gits keep getting in your way, praising each other's astonishing cleverness in their annoying nasal accents.

There were a few paintings I definitely did "get" though - Self Portrait in Hell (pictured) was a favourite, also Madonna and a huge bearded self portrait of when he was bonkers in the nut.

The realisation I came away with is that you don't have to, technically, be a great artist in order to be considered a great artist. Having a strong vision to portray is more important than how you form the shapes to make them look life-like and genuine. In other words, some of it was a bit shit.

On the way across London afterwards we stumbled upon an installation called Black Pussy - a pagan idol workshop by Jason Rhoades. I found out later it's based around the many slang terms for the word vagina, with no less than 427 of them represented. Whatever.

The large room is a sensory overload with metal shelves holding thousands of artifacts - fur pelts, hats, test tubes, jars, macrame, beads - topped off with inflatable toys and neon lights.

An absorbing tribal retreat and a welcome escape from reality.