Went the the tail end of the press view for Peter Doig's show at Tate Britain. By then all the serious journalists had left (probably off for lunch at Black's) leaving just me and Sarah Kent and the very nice guy who told me I couldn't take pictures because I wasn't a proper photographer. I was, like, how did he know I'm not proper?
We bumped into Peter (see what I did there?) on his way in as we were leaving. He was his usual charming self and despite being in an obvious hurry stopped to chat. He'd helped work out the room layouts as he had very specific ideas about the way that one picture should be visible in the corner of your eye or the way that the diagonal sight lines are very long. He was also really pleased to be at Tate Britain rather than Tate Modern. Having been there the day before with his dad he said that it was for people going for a nice walk rather than going to look at the art. I think the default position for many visitors to London is to go to Modern simply because so much fuss has been made about the building whereas (within their own remits) Tate Britain has a much better collection.
