Musical, musical

I find coming up with strong, single ideas for exhibitions very difficult. I’ll be doing something banal such as brushing my teeth or walking to work, with dozens of insubstantial ideas running through my mind. I have identified so far that coming up with something thematic, or attempting to represent an artist in a new way in a monographic exhibition, needn’t be hugely complex. The exhibitions I have found most valuable seem to be the ones that take one very simple issue and expand upon it in unexpected, but always pertinent, directions. So far my ideas have been about specific things that only lead to dead ends.

In fact, it brings to mind a certain sketch from the first series of Little Britain. In it, the eccentric inventor Matthew Waterhouse barges in – uninvited – to various offices and boardroom meetings with his brilliant new concepts for board games, breakfast cereals, kiss-o-grams and musicals:



Although I like to think that my ideas aren’t quite as moronic as his, I do feel some desperation at my inability to come up with something singularly astounding. At least this might be better than complacency, otherwise I would be self-assuredly be putting on an exhibition that is apparently about modernity (credit crunch anyone?) but really about nothing, requiring reams of text to back it up when really, a strong selection of art works ought to speak for itself.

With regards to musicals, it was of interest to me when I read in the back of the Evening Standard Magazine (at least I didn’t pay for it, ok?) that Cherie Blair loves We Will Rock You, the West End collaboration between Queen and Ben Elton. She notes twice in the interview that she and Leo have “a great time singing along”. You couldn't make it up.