Art by Earphone

My pet hate is the prevalence of earphone guides, (sometimesincluded in the price your ticket) particularly for the big blockbuster art exhibitions galleries are fond of putting on nowadays. The main pupose of them seems to be to direct you through the show as expeditiously as possible, sometimes barriers make it scarcely possible for you to backtrack at all. This goes against the grain with me, I like to take my own route through an exhibition, sometimes going back to review an earlier work. Not willing to condemn the practice out of hand I have tried the earphone route myself in the past. I was less than impressed by the unctuous, platitudinous banality of the commentary. Which in siome cases was actually factually incorrect. Just to watch the progress of others with their ears covered reminds me of the movement of sheep. At a Van Gogh and Gauguin show in Amsterdam I was enthusuastically describing a painting to my companion when I was upbraided by an earphone wearer, she reckoned that as my voice made it difficult for her to hear the commentary I was lucky that she did not complain to the gallery. I'm afraid I was so gobsmacked I was left speechless. John