Undercover Critics: Degas and Dali

Some days you feel like you wouldn't mind a little more art in your life. These are the days that you go to the gallery. Dressed in simple, casual wear with an accessory that shows you are of 'the art pack', you cruise down in an understated, purposeful way, as if this is something you do all the time. You've been to plays, theatre acts, local exhibitions - never mind that was a couple of years ago whilst you were still at uni. You appreciate the craft of acting - on Home and Away. Going to the gallery is just supporting your love and local passion for the love of art - right? And so this same conversation plays, it seems, in the heads of 85% of the people visiting the exhibition with you.

Red Tree FB Profile Pic: The Real Reason People Go To The Gallery

 This was the reality of an exhibition I saw a couple of weeks ago called Degas to Dali. I should've known before I set foot in the place that this would happen - it is a  exhibition about the history of Western art, a topic that people love to relay information about at the dinner table, along with philosophy and politics. Somehow, by knowing the place where Van Gogh did his first famous painting, or being able to recognize a stroke of brush as this or that 'ism',   you can jump a couple of places in the class queue.

The great thing about exhibitions is that they provide most of that info to you - if you are patient enough to read the plaques. All you need to do then is fill in the blanks. And so, amongst a flurry of scarves, berets, and OE-inspired accessories, you find yourself wanting a quiet space but instead being engaged in a sophisticated sizing-up of the competition. What might seem a low hum of comments is actually a war of sublety, of who can pass what witty comment at the appropriate moment.

A Typical Art Gallery War Scene

 Personally, I put this phenomenon down to New Zealand's Tall Poppy Syndrome. For surely if we were allowed to toot our horn we would not need to go to the gallery to do it. Quiet in decibels, many of the exhibition's elements screamed self-recognition and hopeful praise. Neon belts yelled for style. Red lettering screamed designer desire. Scarf wraps egged on education. So many minute details, so little formal recognition. Cascading chatter bumped on keywords like 'Impressionism', and 'Japanese print', but no bossy art critic lauded his views to the gallery masses. So much for all those hours they must've spent listening in art classes and trawling creative sites.

But why write such a lengthy account of what is, at best, a two-hour experience? Because it's just another little gem that I've found of New Zealand culture, along with our being unable to form lines and cheering at the last moment. Turns out that so many of us are brilliant but have no way to foghorn out our talent. And when we do want to, at the art gallery, it's as mice-men, quietly nibbling away our rough edges and placing a foothold in modern culture.