Alien abduction! True story! (or Let them eat art)

Despite a lot of snobbery of various aspects of life in London, visual art does not seem to be one of them. What is exists - admittedly not as much as New York - is available to all. And galleries seem genuinely pleased to have the populi circulating through their veins. I went to some sort of celeb-studded opening the other night. Just phoned up and asked whether I had to r.s.v.p. I was told, quite unusually, that it was open to the public. So while celebs who seemed very familiar but that I didn't really recognize milled about surrounded by long-legged gazelles, I puttered around, looking at the art and wishing I had worn better shoes.

Then yesterday I dropped by the Hayward Gallery. This is a different concept: art that is actually fun, in a creepy Close Encounters meets conceptual art meets downtown clubbing meets futurism meets medieval torture kind of way. As you approach, you see these ominous figures watching you from nearby buildings:



although in fact they have been mistaken for would-be jumpers. First off as you enter, you join a queue. That's right, you queue for art just like attractions at Disney World. I know it sounds bad, but it turns out to be essential to the art. Because as you wait, you watch people entering this gaseous box:

Entering, disappearing, only to reappear as ghostly apparitions:

Then you go in yourself. You've imagined what it is going to be like. A bit like the smoke machine at a club you think. Not quite. It's intensely bright and entirely blinding. I can't see beyond arm's reach. And oh by the way, I can't breathe. I take a few steps in and lose all sense of orientation and space. It's not panic that I feel, but rational fear. Fortunately I can walk in a straight line (a skill that has come in handy more than once) so I somehow make it to a wall and exit, quickly, quietly. No fun house this one, though fascinating. Then I make my way up and join the next queue. Again I wish I could complain, but the queue is part of it. From the outside you see a sieve like box:
And through the little holes you see this:

What you're actually seeing is through to the other wall. The inside is a bit like an alien space ship with metal rods protruding creating a 3d space (or is it a maze?)

Finally, on your way out you pass a gallery that is truly beautiful torture chamber:The guard stopped me from taking more pictures, but imagine the outline of a human body in wire mesh which in turn is surrounded by a superstructure of a wire lattice. Are they being tortured? To me it looked somewhere between the dynamism of a futurist art work and the stasis of sleep. Paradoxical, but there it is.

Is it art supposed to be fun? No harm if it is I say. Not to say that all fun events that take place inside galleries are necessarily art (e.g., some of the sillier installations in the Tate's Turbine Hall). But is there a danger of art veering off into entertainment? Undoubtedly, but it's a fine line that one must not be afraid occasionally to walk.