Art Galore

So we hear that the Government's art collection will be put on display in the Whitechapel Gallery next summer, with guest curators including Nick Clegg, Peter Mandelson and PM's wife and Smython consultant Samantha Cameron. With significant work from across British Art History, this will be a fantastic exhibition, and I'm 100% behind the government in its decision not to sell a single painting despite the current financial hardship of our country. These paintings represent a slice of our history, our identity, our culture, and paint (excuse the pun) the story of our ancestors and hence ourselves. We can learn from paintings just as we can learn from history books and diaries, yet they bring us beauty and elegance in a world decidedly lacking. Typically, this wasn't started out as a cultural venture, but the government decided that buying new paintings to cover the stains in the Whitechapel Buildings would be cheaper than smoothing over another couple of hundred rolls of wallpaper. A happy accident, but one must ask: What on earth were they planning on using to paper the walls? Morris Originals? This is a recession after all, as we keep getting reminded...but then again, we are all getting a fabulous exhibition out of it.