This lunchtime I went along to a talk on modern art by Will Gompertz. For those of you who don't know he's the BBC's Arts Editor and appears on the news quite frequently doing unenviable things like interviewing film stars or visiting art galleries. He looks a bit like a mad professor (long hair flanking a rather bald brow) and, prior to today, was going someway to rivalling my all-time favourite BBC journalist, Andrew Marr. He seems to be getting almost as much airtime these days as Nick Robinson, and, like most humans, makes Robert Peston seem very dull and full of himself (but I must save my Peston rant for another time).
I don't know if I'm allowed to say why he was at our offices, so I'll keep quiet on that front for the time being. To our benefit he gave us a rendition of his Edinburgh Festival show, an introduction to modern art in the guise of a classroom lesson. The show was quite a success apparently, and the little man who introduced him (who was very excited) proudly exclaimed that it was a sell out. An embarrassed Gompertz pointed out that it was quite a small venue.
Gompertz really is an impressive speaker and had the whole room laughing from the start with his self-deprecating humour (he kept on stressing that he wasn't very funny). Best of all he didn't give a complete rendition of his Edinburgh show, but rather a commentary on what he did, so that we saw how he had gone about trying to make art funny. Some of it was rather childish and silly, but Gompertz was so aware of what he was doing that he made it rather endearing. In an effort to find out what we knew about art he made us all draw penises in the style of the art movements he wrote on his blackboard. It's not particularly nice seeing your mother draw a penis, especially when it's in a Pointillist manner, although my pop art penis was rather feeble compared to hers. Nevertheless he made something which could have been rather dull entertaining - I can most definitely see him presenting his own shows in the future. For the time being however he'll just have to settle with being my new idol.
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