Dec 6, 2014
Poem by: Luke Wren Reid
Inspired by: 2014 RACT Insurance Tasmanian Portraiture Prize
31 October - 22 November 2014
Front & Middle Gallery, Sawtooth ARI
Photograph by Mel de Ruyter
I don’t go to enough exhibitions
When I do its usually just for the free drinks
I wander aimlessly and stare at things
Trying to avoid eye contact with people
Who stand between me and the bar
I feel bad for the artists
Mingling
Having to speak to people
And explain the unexplainable
I have done it myself
Exhibited, I left the opening
And cried
Because I just wanted to be left alone
But artists exhibit that’s what they do
Sometimes people even buy things
Sometimes people care
But mostly they just amble past
Staring
Wishing they were a musician
This is the terminal condition
Artists have ears in their eyes that listen
To the songs hung like voices of innocent children
On white walls
To be picked apart or ignored
So mostly I go to galleries
For the free drinks
And wander like a drunk uncle
At a zoo