Where there's Art there's Heart

Here's a stupid thing: I adore art, but I start to panic whenever I step into a gallery.

In the one place I should be at my contented best - surrounded by walls teeming with creative expression - I fall apart. What ought to be an enriching experience, tacitly designed to facilitate the exploration of human empathy and perspective, is for me an overwhelming purgatory of anxiety that compresses me to the point I cannot breathe. At the same time, I experience a sense of extraction, as though my head is being prized open to create a hole so big my sanity could evaporate. Somewhere between these two opposing forces of vice and vortex, I feel myself dissolving in a stream of panic that makes me want to cry; and I feel so daft feeling this way, that all I want to do is run for the hills.

The experience is as mad as a box of frogs, and as grotesquely slimy. All I can think, as I explain it in black and white, is "Poor little "culturally" rich girl. Boohoo - somebody pass her a tissue for her issue."

I could scream, but the truth is this: the only thing I hate more than the experience itself, is that I experience it at all. I just do not understand why somebody as level-headed as I am cannot get a sure-footing in what are essentially buildings with pictures in. I mean come on - what's the big deal? An artist creates a thing, the thing gets put on a wall, plinth, or strung up in a room with similarly themed other things, people turn up to look at these things, and... That's it. The experience can be dressed up in whatever guise some cleverly worded wannabe wants to wow us with, but the bottom-line of the whole "let's go to the gallery" experience can effectively be distilled as: "looking at some stuff".

Who gets in a tizz about that? Surely not some self-certified grounded woman who calls a spade a spade and happily refers to art as "stuff". Surely not her. That would be a whole other level of daft. Come on, it's just walking up some steps, going through a door, availing oneself of a ticket (if needed) and mooching as the mood suits.

There is no drama.

One foot in front of the other, a glance about, a few "oh now, that's interesting/nice/[insert a standard reaction]" and you move along. That's the system, and it is very easy to follow. It certainly does not need the addition of an existential meltdown.

I mean, who do I think I am - Marie-Henri Beyle Stendhal?

"Who?"

Exactly.

Marie-Henri Beyle Stendhal was the person whose name was given to the psychosomatic response of being overwhelmed by art. As the story goes, back in 1817 in the Basilica of Santa Croce in Florence, Stendhal experienced an extreme reaction to the beauty before him which included a racing heart, swimming head, and tears. This reaction now constitutes the diagnosis "Stendhal Syndrome".

Few people have ever been diagnosed with this syndrome. Dostoevsky and Proust being among the very elite minority... and now, joining this select few perhaps we should add Caroline Jane? Ha! I may be stupid, but I am not egomaniacally stupid. Permit me to be assuredly clear on one thing: this Vocal author ain't in that company!

So, what do I think is going on?

Well now, that's a question that has been mulching around my brain for a very long time, gathering endlessly bizarre and spectacularly mossy layers of nonsense as it travelled. Frankly, the crux of the matter is that deeply entrenched in mental quagmire, the only way I am able to share its conceited journey at all is through explanations of the coping strategies I have devised and deployed along the way.

I'd take a moment to buckle up if I were you, it's quite the ride.

1. Move Fast

The slower you move through a gallery the more opportunity there is for a full inglorious anxiety splat-attack. To avoid this, make like clay on a potters wheel, and do as many revolutions of the gallery as you can. Trust me, if you go too slow you could get a wobble-on and fall over. My best advice is to keep the whole shindig in blurred focus, this way you maintain integrity.

2. Take Photos

You can reflect on them later when you are on your own. You'll have the sense of the things you have seen (perhaps you have even seen them twenty times at speed). A photo can help you process your feelings later.

(Note: If anybody from Tate Modern needs a photographic reel of their entire collection, call me).

3. Talk

Misery loves company, and nature abhors a vacuum - especially when there is the threat of a vortex rising within. A bit of unity through chatter can help syphon off some of the cognitive/emotional load before it overflows. Obviously, pick your moments and your people wisely. I steer clear of any "serious" types and look for those whom I feel may need a little bit of reassurance themselves. It's easy to find them, just look for yourself in others.

4. Take People with You

Going it alone is hard by proxy of the vulnerability that comes with isolation. If you can drag somebody with you, who is ideally not overly invested in what is on show, you are on to a winner because you can tick all three of the previous strategies at once... and blame them.

5. Research First

Nothing will knock you off your stride more than being blind-sided by a work of art that unexpectedly winds you. Be prepared. Go in there knowing what to expect and own it.

6. Poke Fun

Remember that behind every work of art is a person that has taken themselves seriously enough to put what they think on show. Who does that? (Me. This. That's funny!) Laugh at the absurdity.

7. Understand the Setting - and Rebel

White rooms are designed to exacerbate art by removing context. Black rooms are designed to exacerbate art by removing you. Whichever you find yourself in, get punk and fight the erasure. Anger is an excellent antidote to anxiety.

8. Make like a Fly

Remember, the gallery curators have no idea who you are. You are the fly in their world, not the other way around. Try and enjoy that vantage point.

9. Your Perspective Matters

It doesn't matter what it says on the little cards or in the fancy exhibition magazine. If you think it's shit, it is. Galleries are about your experience, not somebody else's. Your eyes are all that matter.

10. Public Buildings have Fire Exits Everywhere

It won't take long to get the hell outta dodge if you really wanted.

Okay, this list may be the result of a madwoman's mulched ravings, but it has genuinely and dutifully helped me visit some of the most amazing galleries in the world. That said, there is something missing from it, something that has travelled further than any rational observation or reductionist instructive point on a list ever could. Ironically, it is also the best piece of performance art I have ever seen, and I would never have experienced it if I had not gone to a gallery in the first place.

The art was a hand-puppet show on an ornamental ceiling, performed by an artist who pushed himself across a highly polished parquet floor on his back in a kind of reverse worm motion. Sometimes he rose to loll along a chaise. Sometimes he added his own musical score and quirky narration. It was an extraordinarily uninhibited exhibit of spontaneity humming with warmth and personality - yet nobody in that gallery that day paid this artist any attention. Most visitors simply glided by, the odd one rolled their eyes, a couple of times the artist was stepped over, like a broken paving slab, so the visitor could reach a piece of art that lay beyond him.

Reflecting on the performance now, I think I was the only person to fully appreciate the beauty of his unencumbered artistry. I will never forget the effect that this had on me.

Instead of compression to the point of breathlessness, I felt a fullness to the point of completeness. Rather than experiencing excavation to the extent of evaporation, I felt a huge rushing river of affirming pride pouring into me, flowing through me, and I knew that no matter how long that rush persisted I would never be washed away by it.

I sat down in the gallery that day, and, I am sure much to many "serious" visitor's dismay, I watched that unceremonious, unselfconscious, non-curatable artist perform his quietly whispered heart out - all the way up until the point he came over to me and said,

"Mummy, is it time to go home now?"