For some reason I got the idea that this was going to be a Turner Prize retrospective. It isn’t. It is a showing of the some of the entries for this years Turner Prize which will be announced next year, for the first time outside London, in Tate Liverpool.

Don’t ask me who I think is going to win because the works themselves seemed quite forgettable. Four room sized boxes with holes in the side which seemed to contain lots of fairy lights, some photographs (which seemed interesting), some words made out of light bulbs and a video installation.

The most interesting piece was two planks of wood that you had to step over to get in and out of one of the rooms. Imagine being a member of the Tate staff having to say, “Mind your step, it’s part of the exhibit.”, to everyone who came near to it.

The other galleries had had a bit of a shuffle around. New works by Jackson Pollock, which I hadn’t seen in Liverpool before, and a gallery devoted to Bridget Riley, someone who’s works I've always admired.

Liverpool
The Albert Dock

Having spent the previous evening with my work colleagues and the night in Liverpool I had the perfect opportunity to visit Tate Liverpool.

I'm a big fan of the Tate galleries if only they would open one in Manchester, or even Chester, then I would visit more often. The nearest one being in Liverpool.

I don’t profess to liking, or understanding it all, but I do like seeing paintings by Jackson Pollock, especially after watching Pollock, the film that Ed Harris made in 2000 about him. I remember a room in Tate Modern which had a Pollock on one wall and a painting by his partner, Lee Krasner, on the wall opposite. What I didn’t see was anything by Damien Hirst which was a pity.

What they did have was an exhibition called Summer Of Love, Art of the Psychedelic Era. There were concert posters from the sixties, Bill Graham’s name seemed to be at the top of most of them. Henry Rollins mentioned him on one of his spoken word CD’s so I knew that he was a concert promoter. I've just tried to think of the name of the beat poet who always seemed to be in photos with Timothy Leary but I can’t think of his name. I barely recognised Timothy Leary. In all the photos that I've seen he had always been old and grey. I remember that before his death he was documenting the last days/years of his life on a web-site. Sort of like a blog I suppose. Here is a quote that I remember reading:

I have found a new way to get high and spacey for hours and its legal. It’s called senility. It improves long term memory – in walking to the kitchen I remember fighting another kid when we were four and all my grade school teachers and my first date. It destroy’s short-term memory – when I get to the kitchen, I don’t know why I went there. And I forget the third effect.Timothy Leary

I'm not certain but I'm sure he was backstage on the Sphinctour DVD by Ministry.

There were many great photos of Hendrix, Joplin, The Beatles, a poster of Frank Zappa sat on a toilet is one image that will stay with me. Just loads of great artwork and photos of festivals, like the Isle of Wight festival with The Who.

I've just remembered the name of the beat poet, it was Allen Ginsberg. Thankfully there is nothing wrong with my memory, like a valve amplifier, it just takes a while to warm up.